Seeking Balance

March 30, 2021March 29, 2021 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 12 Comments

When we talked about “finding balance” in the Before Times, it seemed different.

More aspirational. More of a long term, “I’ll get there eventually” sort of concept.

These days it seems more like an immediate and visceral struggle — with some of them going far better than others.

One moment you’re a ninja of mindfulness — listening to soothing music instead of doom-scrolling, whipping up scones, churning out preserves, finishing little projects here, starting ambitious new ones there, getting lots of fresh air and exercise, taking one moment at a time, and generally thinking, “I’ve got this.”

In short: you’re CRUSHING this whole balance thing. Easy peasy!

Marvin goes for gold in the Olympic fencing category

Unfortunately those days, for me at least, are rare — dare I say, imaginary — especially as we meander into year two of stress and uncertainty.

There are many more days when my scrolling thumb is screaming for relief, thoughts are scrambled and nerves are stretched thin enough to pluck a plaintive and off key ballad called “Enough Already.”

Balance, in other words, proves elusive.

As you may have gathered, it’s been a rough week.

I’ve recently taken up Fair Isle knitting for the first time in a long time. You really have to concentrate and, if you follow the pattern, it works out more or less as it’s supposed to, which is particularly reassuring at the moment. Another plus — it’s impossible to doom-scroll at the same time.

And, of course, there are always the crow therapists — like Marvin the fencing champion shown above. And Mavis, keeping a stern eye on me . . .

Spring is here — and just as they brought joyful visual messages during difficult times last year . . .

. . . my crow neighbours are painting hopeful pictures again now.

Leap of Faith

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Bonus Raven

March 24, 2021 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

Not having made it up the mountains this week, I wasn’t expecting to hear that heart- lifting and immediately recognizable raven call.

And yet, wandering out to the alley with the recycling and no expectations — there it was. Unmistakable. And loud.

It was so loud because it was on the Hydro pole right beside me! Dropped recycling and pelted back to the house for the camera, just in time to catch a quick shot of a crow (undoubtedly Marvin or Mavis) dive bombing the visitor.

The raven flew off to the most unlikely of destinations — the construction site where they’re building the artificial turf sports facility for the private school at the end of the street. Naturally, I followed.

The upcoming video isn’t as pastorally playful as the one I took a couple of weeks ago of them enjoying fun in the mountain snow, but I think it’s just as interesting a display of how a raven brain ticks. Our resourceful corvid friend had a bundle of something in his/her beak. I couldn’t really tell what it was, but it seemed precious. Perhaps bones. Watch how carefully that treasure is cached under whatever material is available — in this case, great lumps of grey road crush.

My favourite part is the ultra-casual “nothing to see here” saunter away afterwards.

Adding extra excitement, the flag person for the construction site yelled at me and told me I wasn’t allowed to take photos! Huh? Not wanting to get into the dubious legality of that statement, I just pointed out the raven and continued filming. Luckily for all concerned, they decided to just let the crazy corvid lady alone.

After a short site inspection, taking in the piles of gravel and some of the heavy machinery, the raven tried out the acoustics. Even before all the extra concrete was poured for the sports facility, this area was occasionally appreciated by visiting ravens for its echo chamber qualities. (See: Special Days, 2018) Yesterday’s calls , shown in the following video, reminded the crows to renew their official protests.

After a brief stop in nearby tree and being re-mobbed by crows (mostly likely Marvin and Mavis again) our visitor decided to move on.

I often wonder if the ravens we sometimes we see in our neighbourhood have just popped down from the local mountains. Vancouver seems very close from there, all spread out below, and not too many powerful wing flaps away for a raven with an urge for some urban excitement. Anyway, it makes me happy to know that, even if we don’t see them every day, they’re close.

I’m always, always straining my ears for that call.

For more ravens in the city, see:

On raven intelligence studies:

Raven Reasoning (2020)

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Going Viral in a Pandemic

March 21, 2021March 20, 2021 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 10 Comments

Well it’s been quite the week since my last post.

The video of the ravens playing and rolling in snow, featured in Raven Therapy Part 2, was also posted on social media. I thought there were probably a few people out there, feeling stressed like me, who might enjoy losing themselves in raven fun for a few minutes.

It turned out there were a LOT of people who really, really needed to see ravens being goofy in the snow last week. The first indication that things were going bonkers was when I got an email from a company called Viral Hog, wanting to “rep” my video and see if it could bring in revenue. I decided against that, but I did end up being interviewed for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Vancouver is Awesome. (You can see the CBC TV interview here. It’s the whole news show and I don’t appear until about the 10:10 point but you can fast forward after the ads.) I’m told the video was also featured on the Weather Network. In weather obsessed Canada, that is truly making it to the big time.

I’m not too savvy with figuring out the statistics for my social media — I normally just post things I like and hope other people like them too. I did manage, however, to find a thing called Insights on my FB page and it showed that it’s “reach” had climbed from whatever humble number it normally hovers at, to 3.42 million. Now that’s almost scary!

If you’ve been waiting for a reply from me, I apologize as I’ve just lost track of the emails, comments and messages on all the different platforms. I’m gradually working my way through them, but I may never get back to everyone. I think things are beginning to settle down now. Phew.

I did manage to escape back up the mountains a couple of times amid all of this. There were, alas, no more playing ravens this week — but there was magic of many other varieties.

There were, for example, the impossibly cute Douglas squirrels darting about through the snowy landscape. I think they were feeding on seeds from cedar trees as we saw lots of those shaken from the trees and lying on top of the snow.

In the video below, a Douglas squirrel gives an energetic alarm call. I’m not sure what the emergency was, since they’re generally quite fearless around humans.

And a small squirrel drama in which the protagonist drops his seed, is confused and seems to blame me …

On another mountain trip, devoid of ravens, we were amply compensated by a Northern Pygmy Owl sighting.

Almost missed it as it’s just a tiny little dot on top of this tall tree on the right.

Far away as it was, it obligingly sat there for quite a while so I could use my long lens to get some photos of it …

The perfect little tree topper. I’m tempted to try and make one out of felt for next year’s Christmas tree!

The last time we went up the mountain, we reached the view point over Vancouver early in the morning— only to find someone there ahead of us. His presence may have explained the absence of ravens.

While the ravens (and the squirrels, ironically) were keeping a low profile, someone else was furious and not shy about letting everyone know. You can hear them in this video.

And here is our tiny protester …

Our little Norman the Nuthatch didn’t return to the garden this last winter, so every time I see one somewhere else I wonder if it’s him, living his best life out in the wide world.