Risqué Ravens

March 13, 2024March 12, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 5 Comments

Well, you just never know what you might see up on the mountain!

You may remember that I wrote last month about seeing a raven pair devoted to pre-nesting behaviour, with lots of beak play and mutual preening of feathers. I think we saw a different pair on this most recent trip (the male had an oval- shaped eye on one side) — but they were engaged in the same activities.

This female raven was also doing her best fledgling-begging-to-be-fed impression in order to solidly fix in her mate’s brain his future role as sole breadwinner (and bringer) when she’s stuck in the nest on egg-incubation duty.

They did the little “feed me” dance when several times.

The female, it seemed, was sufficiently impressed and convinced of her partner’s proficiency in this matter, because …

*** WARNING: R-Rated Raven Content Ahead ***

After one feeding ritual she bowed down, wiggled her tail and — well — Nature took it’s course!

I really couldn’t believe my luck to have witness this moment! In fifteen years of watching crows in my own neighbourhood, I’ve never seen them actually mating and never expected to see this briefest of brief interactions between a raven couple.

Having seen the female raven’s rumpled feathers right after “the act,” I now find myself looking rather knowingly at my local crows whenever I see one of them in a similarly unkempt state.

Female raven “en deshabille”

The male raven continued to preen and groom his mate because, of course, that ten second act was just the beginning of a long process that will test the trust and partnership between them for many weeks to come.

The loving raven couple with a sweeping view of Vancouver behind them

Our female raven is probably sitting on some newly-laid eggs right now and her well-trained mate is keeping her fed. Two to three weeks of incubating the eggs, and then both raven parents will share the work of keeping the hatchlings fed, guarded and clean, and Mom will be able to get out and about and feel the rush of wind under her wings again.

I’ve no idea where their nest is. As you can see in the video below, it could be almost anywhere!

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.