Meet Brunhilde

February 29, 2024February 28, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 6 Comments

Musical aptitude: is it inherited or taught?

Brunhilde has both advantages; being the offspring of a well-known local chanteur, and benefiting from his esteemed tutelage since birth.

She is the daughter* of Bongo and Bella and — of their three 2023 fledglings— she always has been the most chatty.

Brunhilde has been absorbing both musical and general crow survival skills from both parents since hatching from an egg here in East Vancouver sometime in late spring of 2023.

She has not let humble beginnings, or her incredibly noisy environment, stand in her way.

Not content to merely imitate the work of her illustrious father, our promising young vocalist is already working on a style that is uniquely her own …

Brunhilde seemed the obvious name for her, given her lyric tendencies and generally operatic style. While we may never see her perform in a horned helmet, I kind of hope that naming her after a powerful Valkyrie warrior princess might keep her safe as she navigates the journey to full adulthood in the rough and risky crow world.

She may one day grow into her fierce name, but for now, she’s pretty timid and submissive.

Bowing deeply and singing for parental permission to eat this nut.

More, “oops, sorry don’t mind me trying to get in on the food” posturing.

Although she’s only been exploring the world for about nine months, Brunhilde is already quite a character. I must admit to being quite in love with her.

Look for more Brunhilde photos and videos coming soon.

Meanwhile, see how splendid she looks in the rain …

For the true musical aficianado, here is the “uncut” version of Brunhilde’s first demo tape.

* I am identifying Brunhilde as a female, although I have no biological proof. Two factors: that it is most often females who stay with the parents after the first season and that she is smaller than the other crows, have influenced me in this.

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The First “Boing” of Spring

February 27, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 1 Comment

It’s a sound I’ve waited for since last summer.

For whatever reason, Bongo only “boings” during nesting and fledgling season, so his first call of the year is a sure sign that spring is close, and that nesting is at least starting to cross his mind.

It was just after Valentine’s Day when I thought I heard it for the first time, but there it was again on February 22. This time I even managed to get a video of the tail end of the performance.

Of course, being East Vancouver, a plane is flying over and a car drives by, but you can hear that special sound through it all …

We may be in for snow again today, but the crows are definitely thinking nesting thoughts. Selecting potential nest sites and emphasizing territorial boundaries seems to be step one. I’ve noticed crows idly fiddling about with small bits of wood and string on the ground, as if to remind themselves about the whole building process. I’m eagerly waiting to see the first crow flying off to a nest site, trailing a bigger twig. That usually starts in March, so any day now!

Bongo and Bella will have an assistant this breeding season as one of last year’s fledglings has stayed with them.

Brunhilda seems to be a chip off the old block as far as vocal ability goes, so she deserves a whole blog post to herself.

Coming soon!

For more on Bongo and Bella:

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Raven Courtship

February 22, 2024March 9, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 6 Comments

With no new snow on the mountains and none forecast, we decided to head for the hills anyway. I needed to see some ravens!

Predictably, trail conditions were horrible. There’s enough packed and icy snow in shaded areas to make boot spikes necessary — at least for those of us in the knee and hip replacement candidacy stage of life! It makes for rough-going and ghostly chain-clanking sound effects as your spikes drag over the rock, mud (so much mud) and roots between the sporadic snow patches.

But it was worth the slog on Monday as we witnessed some new-to-us raven courtship behaviour.

At first, the ravens were just quietly calling to each other in the trees, but seeing several groups of hikers putting down backpacks and then walking away (!) to get a better look at the view proved too intriguing for their innate pickpocketing instincts.

They seemed quite young and, at first, didn’t display any romantic behaviour. They hardly even seemed to spend much time close to each other — although that doesn’t necessarily tell you that they’re not “together.” In fact, they were working as a well-practiced team, with one raven distracting the humans while their partner subtly worked their way to the rear — out of sight and out of mind. You’d be surprised how many people only see the one raven in front of them, getting close to their snacks, and think they’ve fooled the bird by cleverly putting the bag behind them! The ravens would be less surprised.

There was at least one other raven audible in the trees and this pair seemed very attentive whenever the hidden raven made the “knocking call.” Head feathers would go up and they would stop everything and listen. I have the feeling that these two were the junior couple in this territory.

After a while they flew off. I thought they’d be gone but, instead, they put on a display that would shame the Abbotsford Air Show. They soared, dipped, barrel-rolled and flew impossibly close to each other — a breath-taking version of Dancing With the Stars! The whole performance seemed like a raven tango.

The formation flying did seem to turn their thoughts to love and courtship.

As soon as they landed I heard a very agitated raven call and, for the first time ever, I saw the raven female imitating a fledgling — begging to be fed by the male.

This is a performance I’ve seen many times between crow partners down in the city, but I’ve never been lucky enough to see the raven version. So exciting!

It’s all part of the preparation for nesting season when, for about three weeks, the female will be completely dependant on her mate for food when she’s confined to egg sitting duty. In order to make sure her partner has definitely got the gist of how things need to go, she’ll start these begging behaviours well ahead of time.

Raven couples are pretty generous with mutual grooming and scratching of the itchy parts that a single raven can’t reach all year round, but they really crank up the allopreening just before nesting season. They need to make sure that the bond between them is solid for all the hard work of nest building, nest guarding and fledgling rearing ahead.

The word “allopreening” doesn’t sound terribly romantic, but lots of tenderness seems to go into the mutual tending of feathers.

Sometimes the result of a particularly thorough head preening can be a bit on the hilarious side …