Ravens in the City

Seeing a raven right in my very own urban back alleyway is always a thrill, and we had a couple of such visits over the holidays.

It’s also a great chance to observe crows and ravens together.

Crows rarely, if ever, venture into the mountain territory of the ravens — but ravens are pretty regular visitors to, and even inhabitants of, the crows’ home turf in the city.

I’m usually alerted to the presence of a raven in the ‘hood by the frenzied response of the local crows. Ravens are on the long and varied crow “naughty list.”

Any creature that will harm to crows, crow fledglings or crows’ nests earns a spot in this well-maintained catalogue and will, generally, be dive-bombed on sight.

Eagles, hawks, owls, free-roaming cats, raccoons, coyotes, certain people and even their own relatives, the ravens, are on the crow “List of Infamy.”

Below is a typical scene with crows coming together to enthusiastically mob a visiting raven.

But crows are mysterious beings. Just when you think you’ve got them figured out, they chuck another behavioural curve ball.

The most recent raven visits were protested by crows — but minimally.

Norman and Nancy were understandably upset because this raven was, not only in their territory but, on the first visit, also taking the liberty of using their last year’s nest as a dining platform.

You can hear Norman and Nancy in the background, making their feelings known.

Marvin, Mavis and Lucky — their nearest crow neighbours — watched the raven visit without any visible interest and certainly no moves to assist with the mobbing behaviour.

I wondered if they were engaging in a spot of crow schadenfreude, since Norman and Nancy have taken over part of their territory, including that tree, in the last few months.

It wasn’t just Marvin and Mavis ignoring the situation. Not one crow from the wider area came to assist with the raven-removal project, which I thought was quite odd. So it was just two irate crows vs one relatively unconcerned raven going about his/her business.

On the next visit, the raven chose this rather precarious top branch of a nearby tree. Again, Norman and Nancy protested alone.

This time, it occurred to me that the raven’s mate was probably around somewhere too, so I scanned as much of the neighbourhood as I could from the top floor of our house. The cross on top of the local church is a favoured perch for ravens and eagles, being the highest object on the highest ground, so I looked there first and …

The distance between the church raven and the treetop raven is, according to Google Maps, just under half a kilometre. That seems quite a distance, but only a couple of wing flaps for a raven. There were no crows bothering the church raven either.

In their own time both ravens took off and disappeared together into the distance.

Norman and Nancy did do some performative pursuing of the raven who’d been in “their” tree which, if nothing else, offered a good opportunity for crow/raven size comparison and flying symmetry.

I’m not sure why the crows have been so relaxed about the ravens lately. I HAVE seen big crow protest committees flying off together but it seems that their number one concern at the moment is the bald eagles’ nest — which I can also see in the distance from the top of our house.

I always hope that at least one pair of ravens might manage to fit themselves into the ecology of our neighbourhood, so I’m secretly hoping that the crows might give them a break long enough to get established.

Norman and Nancy, I think it’s safe to say, do not share my dreams.

P.S. See what happened almost a year ago when an eagle, a bunch of crows and a raven came together for a few dramatic moments … Crow Vs Eagle Vs Raven