A Raven Soap Opera in Two Acts

April 9, 2023April 9, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 7 Comments

It’s a busy Easter weekend with not much time for blog posting, so I’m going to let the ravens do most of the work.

Even as it’s starting to look ever so slightly spring-like down here in Vancouver, it’s still a winter wonderland up on the nearby mountains. As it’s a winter wonderland that sometimes contains ravens, so we try to get out there at least once a week.

The Raven Soap Opera is a short video I filmed when we were up on Seymour a couple of weeks ago. It was Spring Break, a sunny day, and the ski hill was packed when we got back to the ski lift area/parking lot from our early morning expedition.

You can hear the excited buzz of human voices in the background, and that high pitch of human energy was mirrored in a large group of ravens socializing nearby.

Act One:

A raven pair — first just strolling casually along as one of them (Walking Raven Right) makes a quiet but emphatic call — then hopping along with increasing urgency as they near a bigger group of birds congregating on a snow pile ahead …

Act Two:

Now this is where the action really begins. You may need to pause and rewind a few times to catch every little bit of the action.

Our couple reaches the larger group and you can see Walking Raven Right has already decided to make an impressive entrance.

Raven at bottom right with a ball of ice in beak (Ice Ball Raven) can see which way the wind blows and makes a tactful retreat with prize.

WRR gives a haughty head toss upon arrival, immediately singling out one of the group for a thorough verbal dressing down. This raven takes a respectful step back, but not without getting the last word in (Last Word Raven.)

Things calm down momentarily until yet another raven who’d been minding their own business in the background decides it’s time for their moment of glory and dives at Ice Ball Raven.

And that was it — just a few seconds of raven social interaction.

I love these moments because I know they’re just the very tip of the raven iceberg.

It’s tantalizing, wondering about the hours and hours of Ibsen-like drama and dialogue I’m missing when I’m not up on the mountain.

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Crows vs Eagle vs Raven

February 23, 2023February 22, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 5 Comments

Guess who would come out the winner in this contest?

Well, I have the answer!

Sometimes you see amazing things out in the quiet snowy forest.

Other times you see them amid the roar of traffic on Grandview Highway on a Wednesday morning!

We’d just parked the car when, over the rumble of trucks and much furious crow cawing, I heard a brief raven call.

Looking across the four lane roadway we noticed a lot of crows and one enormous eagle in a tree. No sign of a raven at first.

As we watched we noticed a bird hopping up the tree towards the eagle.

Bigger than the crows and moving with purpose.

Next thing we knew the raven had grabbed the eagle’s tail feather.

We’re not talking about a little playful tug, either — the raven HAULED that eagle right off the branch.

The eagle (a juvenile) took off with what remained of their dignity, pursued by crows.

I couldn’t see if the raven had succeeded in getting something the eagle had, or if he or she was just making a point.

This is what I managed to capture with my phone, from four lanes of moving vehicles away …

Here’s the whole video in real time, which shows the raven slowly climbing up the the eagle and sitting there for a full ten seconds before making their bold move!

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Raven Games

March 14, 2019March 15, 2019 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 12 Comments

I was worried that I wasn’t going to get well soon enough to go up on the mountains again this winter. Luckily, it’s been snowing like crazy up there (as well as in the city!) and I finally started to feel better earlier this week.

Yesterday we headed up to Mount Seymour for a short outing.

Nothing too ambitious, just a nice stroll in the winter wonderland.

The silence in the snow-baffled woods … the traditional peanut butter sandwich at the Dog Mountain lookout … and fresh, fresh air, were all very therapeutic.

But he most joyful thing of all was seeing the ravens playing.

I’ve never seen them have fun with snowballs before, but conditions yesterday were extremely snowball friendly. In fact, I developed a ball of it under one of my feet at the end of our walk. I tried to knock it off with my walking pole, but it was so persistent that part of it was still stuck the underside of my boot when we got home. This snow just INSISTED on being made into snowballs, and the ravens were happy to oblige.

As you can see from the video below, they were quite committed to this game. They reminded me very much of puppies playing.

Gloating when you’ve got the snowball is an important part of the game.

If you lie on the snowball, that makes it hard for your opponent to get it, rather like rugby.

Flying away with the snowball is the final solution.

Let the good times roll!

Just to emphasize how puppy-like the ravens were, here are Geordie and Luke wrestling this morning.

Compare the fun and strategy to these two ravens …

In my trips to the mountains in the winter, I’ve seen the ravens playing in the snow many times — rolling in it, playing with found objects — but I’ve never seen them having so much fun with snowballs. It wasn’t just this one pair either — I could see other groups further away engaged in the same game.

A few minutes later they all flew away to pursue other winter pastimes, so I felt very lucky to have watched this, and keen to share the fun with you!