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 …

And the grooming is a two-way process …

So, in spite of the sad lack of snow, it’s still beautiful up on the mountain and worth braving the less than ideal trail conditions.

And one raven sighting is worth slogging through a lot of mud!

Some more posts on raven behaviour, romantic and otherwise:

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The Crow Summer of ’23

August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 20 Comments

I’ve been putting off this post because, as you may have guessed from my last mention of the Walker crows, things have not been going well for them. I know this update will make many of you sad, as it has me.

Their tragedy, set in the context of this summer’s many, many heartbreaking tragedies, can seem like “hill of beans” material; and yet, I keep watching, thinking about and reporting on the crows’ lives because I believe to my core, that we need to watch them all — the small pictures and the big picture.

For the Walkers, things went from pretty good, to very bad, to surprisingly hopeful, to disaster in a few months. To recap: by mid-April, they seemed all systems go for nesting when Mr. Walker suffered his eye injury, which put everything on hold as he recovered. By the first week of May, they were back in the nesting game. The next challenge was the empty lot next to them suddenly sprouting a massive new structure which surprisingly brought a lot of human activity right up to nest level.

The Walkers met that unexpected challenge and, in what seemed to be the final victory, got both of the two fledglings safely down out of the high nest. I really thought the odds had turned in their favour at this point.

Two Walker fledglings safely fledged

It was right at this point that Mr. Walker just disappeared. I walked that block time after time, day after day trying to spot him but only found a very exhausted Wanda (who is also blind in one eye) braving the hot dry weather, trying to keep the two fledglings fed and out of danger.

Mr. Walker, last seen around July 12

Walker Baby on July 13

Walker Fledgling on July 19

Wanda doing her best as a single parent

Exhausted Wanda

Wanda’s impaired vision has always made it hard for her to make a smooth landing on branches. I guess her depth perception is a bit off, so she was crashing from one tree to another trying her best to keep the young ones safe. But there was one danger she couldn’t keep at bay. The first baby to fledge, and then the second, started showing signs of avian pox around the beak and eyes. They are the only crows I’ve seen recently with the pox, and I won’t post photos as I just can’t bear to look at them myself. I’m not sure why these two came down with it when all of the other local fledglings I’ve seen look healthy — but I do know that having the variety that infects the beak and eye area is usually fatal.

I was away for five days for the Hornby Island trip and went up to the Walkers’ area as soon as I got back to see how things were going, only to find an eerie silence. No baby begging sounds and no Wanda. No Walkers at all, in fact — from four Walkers in early July to zero Walkers a month later

I go back at least once, often twice, a day to see if I see anyone. I have occasionally thought I caught a glimpse of Wanda, but I can’t be sure. As always, watching and becoming fond of wild creatures is, as my husband always says, “not all beer and skittles.” It does require a willingness to have your heart broken (and yet hold on to a small patient hope that fall might bring some sort of miraculous return.)

Mr. Walker in happier times, spring 2022

In Happier News …

Other local crow families are faring better – the Wings, the Bongos and the very busy Earl and Echo have managed to get through the season, although all are looking a bit bedraggled as they combine the later-stage fledgling care with a moult that seems to have started earlier than usual for some of them.

A Head Full of Crows

July 20, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 18 Comments

It’s a recurring condition with me, I’m afraid.

Often my brain gets so overwhelmed with crow thoughts that words fail me. This bout is particularly ill-timed as I am overdue in writing this blog post and I know many of you are awaiting news on the Walkers and other crows. I’m also trying to prepare a talk about crows to be delivered on Hornby Island in less than a week.

Time, therefore, to try and blast through the crow block. Here goes …

CROW BRAIN PART ONE

One of the things weighing on me, and that I’ve been reluctant to share, is that I have worrying news about the Walkers.

I was so thrilled to see that they got through Mr. Walker’s spring eye injury, the giant new house going up right beside their chimney nest and the long hot spring to the point of getting both fledglings safely out of the nest.

Fledgling number one left the nest on July 6. Fledgling number two is much smaller and probably would have stayed nest-bound longer, but I think it was just getting too hot up there, and they exited on July 8.

Baby Two’s last day in the hot nest

Days after Fledgling One was on the ground, I noticed that he or she has avian pox around one side of the mouth and eye, poor thing.

Fledgling Two looks healthier, which is good.

Walker babies, July 14

Walker Baby Two, whose tail feathers don’t seem quite developed yet

Wanda and Baby Two seeking shade in someone’s vegetable garden

Even more worrying; I haven’t seen Mr Walker for just over a week . Wanda seems to be single-parenting both fledglings and is looking pretty exhausted, racing around in this heat all day long.

Wanda on feeding detail

Mr. Walker on July 13, the last time I saw him

I’m hoping that (a) Mr. Walker will reappear and (b) Baby One will manage to fight off the avian pox — but I’m feeling, I have to admit, extremely anxious.

Baby Two going for a stroll, looking for lawn watering refreshment

CROW BRAIN PART TWO

The second thing that has crows flapping around in my head, day and night, is preparing my talk on Crow Watching.

I know, I know, I’ve given talks before and this should be a doddle. Why reinvent the wheel, etc? But every time I revisit the subject I start turning around the “why crows?” question in my mind. New answers, and “better” ways to express them pop up and I feel I have to work them in.

It’s like having to write the dreaded “artist’s statement” — wrestling the jello of thoughts, feelings and doubts about your work; why it’s important; why anyone but you should care — into something vaguely coherent (and less than four hours long!)

I’m at the “incomprehensible spaghetti bowl full of ideas” stage at the moment, but hoping that I’ll have the strands separated by next week.

I see I’m starting to use a lot of food metaphors, which is my brain telling me it’s time to start making dinner.

I’ll say goodbye for now and hope that the crows will come and magically write my presentation for me as I sleep, like the little birds and mice in Cinderella!