A Year With The Ravens at Crystal Cove

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Thankyou for posting this Iā€™m SO excited to watch this on weekend šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ» What a dream

šŸ‘ļøŽ︎ 3 šŸ‘¤ļøŽ︎ u/[deleted] šŸ“…ļøŽ︎ Jul 15 2021 šŸ—«︎ replies
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Many years ago I had the opportunity to help out an abandoned baby Raven. This tale is told in more detail in both picture book and a short film called "Bob, Huey & Me" so I'll just give you a quick overview for those not familiar with the story. I found a very young bird that was obviously way too young to fly. Seemingly perfectly healthy, I cared for it and protected it from harm just until it could fly, and then it was free to do whatever it wanted to do. But there's a relationship issue I need to talk about because in the short time I nursed this raven back into the wild I learned Ravens are more unique than I ever dreamed they could be. Can I show what kind of grip you have on my arm? I can? I was curious to see if I could see the same behavioral traits in the wild birds and if they would manifest in a similar or completely different way. So I had to find out and that's what brought me to the wild Ravens I had seen for many years every time I passed Crystal Cove State Park. Which even before my Raven fascination was one of my favorite drives in all of Southern California. This gorgeous stretch of wilderness on Pacific Coast Highway is on the south end of Newport Beach just before you get to the city of Laguna. What follows is the true stories I have videotaped over the last two decades with the birds. At times I will be sharing my prior short stories with Huey, and then giving examples of what I have experienced with the wild Ravens in different parts of the country. I hope you will be as amazed and entertained by these truly magnificent birds as I am! Nice catch! Crystal Cove is a California state park with a vast array of native wildlife on land, in the sea, and in the air. Hundreds of different migrating birds (hello pretty bird) and there are numerous marine mammals that pass by at different times of the year! A mom and a baby. There's a tail! Crystal Cove is also an historic area with the only Depression era squatters village left in the entire California coast. Visitors can rent these amazing cabins and stay here as long as a week. And, Crystal Cove is home to the four Raven families I've tracked and befriended since the early 2000's. I've spent countless hours with these birds sometimes sunrise, to sunset, keeping a video log of both the adults, and the young they raise each year. It is here where I've gotten many of my Raven questions answered in addition to a host of new material I learned every season of every year. These are completely wild birds with absolutely no physical human contact at any time in their life. In all the time I've spent with these birds I've only had actual contact four times. Once just to see if I could, the other three times were because of injuries. before I begin let me answer a few questions I think you may have as we go along. Let's start with how can I tell the different birds apart? And how can I tell male from female? Keeping track of the different couples is pretty easy for me because Ravens are so territorial. I can almost draw a line in the sand and show you where each of the couple's territory starts and stops and where the next couples territory begins. I can do this pretty consistently all the way down the entire beach. Currently, in 2017, there are four couples and their territories are just about a mile each along the beach. There's Gus and Lisa, Harold and Maude, the Moro's, and then a fourth couple I've never named. This couple nests on the other side of Coast Highway and just come and use the beach so I basically just watched them. Oonce in a while I get visiting Ravens who don't belong but they're pretty easy to tell because they're the ones getting chased out. Now as far as male from female this is not so easy to be sure because Ravens look so much alike. But there are ways! The best is to pay attention during both the mating season and the nesting season. In this park only the female incubates the eggs and the male feeds the female while she's on the nest. Therefore during this time the male will be the one out and about collecting food to feed her while she is on the nest. Note she will take a break once in a while and when she does she plays! So we look and we watch him closely, and see if we can find a feather missing, or some other distinctive mark like my favorite pair Harold and Maude. Notice the difference in the bills, hers has a hook on the end, and his doesn't. Also, Harold has one foot that is white and more swollen than the other so even high in the sky this one is pretty easy for me to tell. Another thing I find very interesting is that each of my couples are completely different. In one couple it's the male who's the brave one, in the other couple it's the female! The difference in the individual Birds personality is far more unique and quite easily detectable in Ravens if one takes the time to get to know them. And when we know the features of each individual bird at Crystal Cove, even when all eight get together and meet and play on a windy day, we can pretty much tell who is attending the party! When visiting other parts of the world I used the same criteria. Here you'll see one of my favorite couples at Bryce. Notice the male is obviously bigger and with a heavier bill. The female is smaller and she makes more noise. And, he feeds her at nesting time. And in this couple he is by far the more brazen of the two. One other important question before we get started why do these wild birds have anything to do with you in the first place? Well, first you have to understand Ravens are naturally curious, if you're quiet and genuinely curious about them, they will notice and they will be curious about you! Second, my father was a forest ranger when he was young, and he taught me the wisdom of moving roadkill off the road so that other animals like, bobcats coyotes, cougars and numerous birds won't get killed trying to dine out in the middle of the street. Well guess what? The bobcats in the coyotes didn't notice me moving the stuff, but the Ravens sure did! Want me to move that out of the road for you? I see what you're after... So now whenever I enter the park, they will check to see if I'm carrying! We'll begin in spring! (Hi bud, what are you doing?) And then I'll take you through each of the other three seasons and show you how the birds develop through all of their growth stages. From egg, to nesting, to fledgling, to juvenile, to sub adult and what they will be learning in each of these four seasons before they are old enough to find a mate and territory of their own! Every Raven begins its life in an egg that's laid in a one-of-a-kind nest that only Ravens make! The female may lay anywhere between one and eight eggs. Because I conduct my study in a protected State Park, I purposely don't bother the birds during the nesting egg stage and although I still keep my distance, a strong zoom lens can bring us in on all the action. All of my Raven couples generally have between three and six young in what is called a brood. There's only been one year when one couple just had one single nestling in its brood. Ravens grow very fast and appear very close to adult size in just about three weeks. Here's what it looks like from my view! By this time when I point out the baby Ravens to visitors I always hear that's a baby? During this time in the nest they are already getting used to competing with their siblings for food, the best spot to sit, mom or dad's attention, and even before they get out of the nest they learn the art of teasing and are already very aware of the reaction they'll get by pulling their siblings tail, wing, or just about any feather. The shortest time period I recorded was 21 days from hatchling to flying but more often than not it takes somewhere around 30 days before they will actually start to try to fly. Then they will spend a good amount of time standing on the edge of the nest and practice flapping their wings. And although I've seen many close calls, I haven't witnessed anyone pushing their sibling completely out of the nest, yet. As the young bird actually begins to fly, I noticed the environment has already had an influence on the birds. The birds on the cliff sides always seemed to fly sooner. They don't have any choice compared to the birds born in the trees because with the cliff dwellers it's all or nothing. They can traverse little areas on the cliffs but those areas are small and quite limited. The parents build the nests in these hard-to-reach places on purpose so snakes squirrels bobcats and other animals can't get to the young. Now my tree born young have a lot more area where they can hobble around and they can begin making smaller hops and generally shorter flights. I say generally because every once in a while one will surprise itself by over committing. All Ravens soon learn flying, and landing, are two very different things. Once the cliff dwellers have made the leap they are fully committed and landing can be quite dangerous. Usually it's pretty funny and no one gets hurt. Yep sometimes their landings are not quite so good yet. (Nice show) Fortunately in all the years I've only seen this happen once. She was okay but kind of banged up, and for many months she was very easy to tell from her sibling because her wing was pretty beat up. The tree dwellers have their obstacles too! Sharp sticks and bent branches can certainly get in the way but here again in all the years working with these birds only one tree dweller broke a wing during one of its premiere flights. But for both sets, tree and cliff dwellers they've got to be able to get up and off the ground and know when to stay off the ground. Because depending on what part of the world they're in, there's many that would like these young Ravens for lunch. A young raven caught on the ground is no match for many adult animals out hunting for food for its own young. But now it's time to fly! Our introduction process, we go through it every year, let's get used to the human. He's trying to get up to mom. If there's a time in my relationship with my wife where I could say I might bug her a bit it would be when the baby Ravens are learning to fly. Fortunately, I have my class I teach at Crystal Cove every Wednesday so at least I get to have breakfast with them once in a while, and spend much of the day knowing they are close by. But even on days off I'm asking "Want to go down to Crystal Cove?" a little more often than maybe she might like to hear, See I just marvel at the whole flight thing and watching the young Ravens do it every year never gets tiring because it seems there's always something new, something unique. Each and every year one will do some unique maneuver I've never seen or caught on tape before . One year they're chasing pigeons, the next they're chasing peregrine falcons that would just as soon have them for lunch. For me it's a very exciting time and they seem to know it because right from the get-go they immediately try all kinds of flips, quick turns, some of which are so fast, I didn't see very well until video cameras started giving us 60 to 120 frames per second. nNw I can slow it down and catch many of these crazy and intricate moves provided of course they are, one in focus, two well-lit, and oh, not in the Sun. We learned with our bird they're really not taught to fly they just do it naturally! It's almost magic! Each day they get more confident and they begin to make their way further and further from the nest area. There so cute! Oh yeah, they're just learning how to fly, I wonder of they have more than one? Yeah they have three. The parents. that's not Harold & Maude? Oh yeah, it's Harold Maude! I love it when Harold and Maude kids finally make it out to the education Commons area where I teach my class every Wednesday. I get to watch them all day long and of course all the participants in the class get an eye witness lesson on Ravens and crows that day, whether they want it or not! Right there see how much larger she is? huh huh yeah it's got much more of a diamond shape to it. mm-hmm Where's your siblings huh? Within a week or two they become extremely proficient in the air. They quickly learn to chase and that they can keep up with just about anything in the sky. Although they are still quite weary and wouldn't know what to do with something if they actually caught up with it. In fact many times I can see them purposely holding back from getting too close to whatever it is they're chasing. All this amazing aerial display Hi bud, Hi there! That's a little more like it. But then they still have quite a ways to go when it comes to landing, or sitting on a wire. Nice move, nice, yeah I like that can you do that again? Nice move! I've noticed every brood has its runt. What I don't know is how the runt of the brood is determined by the siblings. What I mean is I don't know if the runt is the last one born? Or the weakest of the group. ? And by weakest I don't know if that is actually a physical characteristic, like being the smallest? Or if it's something that is somehow perceived by the siblings? Or is it a personality thing, like someone who just prefers to avoid conflict with others so they just choose to keep quiet and submit to the group? Whatever it is there is always one. It took me a couple of years to notice but in time I realized a few special things about the runt. This bird is the one I find spending so much time alone totally entertain somewhere up on the hill, digging in the sand, or playing with some special treasure all by itself. No surprise but the runt is almost always the last one to bathe, the last to bed at sunset. And the last to care whether it eats or not. But what kind of surprised me is that by going over my tapes year after year it seemed more often than not the runt was also the one, that because he was the last one and alone. he put on the best flying show. Sometimes flying faster and cutting sharper turns and spins than the others. The rut was also the one who most likely stayed behind with me and either played, or talked and he'd jabber sometimes for over an hour at a time. Just know that this was especially entertaining and for me if I didn't have to go anywhere. He'd start and I just set up my camera and let it roll. There were a number of years when the runt was quite brave and would even sit and jabber with me when park visitors would come within feet of us. Their question to me is usually is that your bird? I'd laugh and say no he's totally wild bird! I kind of enjoyed the fact that people would just be amazed by that! Of course like it or not they got a raven lesson too! Is that your pet bird? Nope, completely wild, so are these two. I'm trying to get him to talk. Usually, he'll talk to me for 45 minutes to an hour. Where's your siblings? Now that they are out and about and getting far more confident with their flying skills they become far more aware of their environment and other things they share their territory with. That includes me! This is one of the more vulnerable times in their life because they start following and mimicking the parents, and I don't think they quite perceive their mortality yet. One of my biggest hurdles with Huey, the young bird I helped to get back into the wild, was how to teach him to fear things that would harm it. Fear for these young birds is not instinct the parents have to teach them this. He's just trapped there and he's trying to get the owl out. He wants him to leave. One of the ways the parent does this is by a certain call it makes when the young birds are too close or doing something they shouldn't. It's kind of funny because each year one of the adult birds, in two of the couples I work with, will treat me just like I'm an unwelcome dog for a short period of time. And with the other two couples both birds are completely comfortable with the young coming within inches of me right from day one out of the nest! Watching the young ones dive-bomb the bobcats, chase after coyotes, follow their parents to help run off Hawks, play with peregrine falcons as the adults it's safe on the ground, is an emotional rollercoaster to be sure. Even though I haven't witnessed it myself, I'd be willing to bet every once in a while one gets too carried away or careless and gets caught. The caretakers at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana told me their wolves catch one or two a year. Hi there! You gonna be my talker this year? In The Raven Diaries Crystal Cove edition, I made a video log of the first three years I had a video camera and could tape the birds as they raised their families. In it I share the fact that each year some of the young birds would all of a sudden be gone and how I'd start my season with say five birds and end with as few as one or two that would be sent off as independent juveniles. Sometimes I knew what happened to the young birds and sometimes I didn't. I always wondered when I was leaving the park and one of the babies was playing with a red-tailed hawk, if I'd ever see him again. And then there'd be times when I'd see a bobcat in the nesting area, and sure enough the next day one of the young would be missing. But on these occasions I have no way of being sure what got it. I can smell ya!. It's hard to explain to people what a joy it is just being able to be so close to them as they grow and get more curious about everything around them. OK, thank you that though. The sibling relationships also continue to develop. We've already mentioned the runt but I also learned who is the more dominant one in the brood, and who are the more subservient. The pecking order isn't as pronounced and obvious as chickens but it's there. One thing you need to understand here is to be able to be this close, you have to have been deemed trustworthy. Adults ravens wouldn't allow just anybody this close to their newly flying young, so I consider a great privilege afforded to me by the adult birds. But also know it doesn't come cheaply, it has cost me dearly. I already told you why the adult Ravens started following me, because they watched as I moved roadkill off the road, but why would the young have anything to do with me? Well in some ways they are just like kids, if you want their respect, if you want them to want to spend time with you, then you have to be willing to spend time with them doing what they like to do! And that's exactly what I do! And like owning a dog, the more time you spend with the dog, the more the dog will reward you with its affection. The birds are very much the same. As an example here is the one time I tested how close I could get to the Ravens at the park. One of the young was on the fence sitting perfectly unafraid. So I slowly walked up, put my arm out gently just under him to see if I could get him to hop up on me like Huey used to do. Sure enough he did. But notice Maude was watching in the background, and as soon as he gets on, listen to the scolding she gives both of us telling us he's too close! Now I only did this once because the park rangers would kill me if I got the birds so comfortable around people. Could you imagine a bird of this size all of a sudden diving down and attempting to land on your arm? Your shoulder? Or your head? That would certainly scare the badoogees out of most park visitors! They surprise and even scare enough people already without my help. Hi there! But I do spend some time trying to teach some other things that wouldn't make them a bother to park visitors. For some birds it's to learn one or two human words, "hello" is about all I've ever gotten them to say. Hey guys want to get up in the air and play a bit? You sure look good! Yeah you do. Just can't believe you're staying here so long. I also try very hard to teach them to try to find and pick up seaglass. Let's go get some. See I teach a class at the park every Wednesday on how to make things, mostly jewelry like pendants bracelets and earrings out of the sea glass that washes up onto the beach so when I'm out on the beach, I naturally look for it. I try to get the young Ravens to help me because they are so curious watching me as I'm looking and poking about. And, I purposely make more of a show of it when they are around and many times they will start digging and scratching about. And sometimes they actually uncover sea glass. This is quite funny especially if park guests are near. Let's get some sea glass! Are you saying right there? Well you're right, look at that, good for you, thank you. He just uncovered some green ones for me, yeah see? Good job guys, thank you! Hi guys, what are you doing huh? Another reason they come close to me is because I bring them the treats that I find during my walks on the trails and on the beach. This park is a nature reserve so many things live here and so naturally some things also die here. Please understand most of what I find the Ravens would certainly find on their own, just I happen upon it first so I get the credit as a friend and provider. Notice my gifts are natural and they are exactly what the Ravens would find on their own. I never do this with any other kind of animal or bird! you You gonna take that all by yourself? Huh did you take that all by yourself? You little piggy. Gonna share? But while we're at it let's talk about what Ravens eat. Now off it goes in my travels I think Ive seen Ravens eating anything and everything at one time or another. Back at the park up to this time the adults have brought and stuffed their young with all kinds of things they find. Offhand I can't think of anything specific they won't try or carry away or cache at least once. See if you guys like that okay? I can tell you they prefer raw lamb over cooked chicken because once I put both out at the same time just to see. They also prefer raw beef over a smash snail. I got a call from an environmental group asking what Ravens did with hard-boiled eggs because in one part of the country a group was going to use poison eggs to kill a large amount of Ravens to save another species. I showed them how Ravens eat the yolk and leave the white behind for somebody else to eat. They also prefer what they can catch themselves over just about anything I bring them, unless it's rabbit. Whatcha got? a grasshopper ? I can tell you bugs are big and it may be one of the reasons why they fly so wacky sometimes. There have been numerous times I've got a shot of a raven doing a fantastic dive or tturn and then gotten home and see that they were most likely chasing a bug! Ad then there's the beetles, grubs, certain types of caterpillars and worm like stuff they dig in root for. Nice move! The Ravens have a rotten reputation for nest robbing but in all the years I've watched Harold and Maude' I've never witnessed it, even when I know for sure they knew there's a Finch nest or a Warbler nest with young in it, Perhaps the Ravens at Crystal Cove are so well fed on other things that they don't partake? But the crows in the park do. The crows took this duck family down from 11 to 1, I wonder if the Ravens sometimes get blamed for the actions of the crows in fact in all the years I've only had one reliable report of Harold and Maude taking one of the Cooper's hawks Young. And twice I witnessed another couple, the Moro's, taking some rock pigeon young. You dining on squab? But in defense both the Cooper's Hawk and the rock pigeons nested in plain view of the Ravens nest. I think this park provides the Ravens with far more than they can possibly eat. By now the young birds are truly some of the great masters of the sky. They soar like sea birds, and they could stay almost as rigid as a hawk if they need to do so. They also seem to love to fly with everything they share the sky with. To me, flight is an engineering marvel and as far as I'm concerned it's a miracle anything, anything at all can fly let alone a bird who is specifically born to do so naturally and effortlessly. Hi little one you're gonna die for me? huh? Do a nice little dive? There we go! Just like that! Oh nice one, almost collide with Dad! Nice one dude! There we go, the leg down scratching, that's really cool, thank you! Every natural physical characteristic of a bird says fly. From the strength and lightness of their bones, to their one-way lungs, to the intricacies of each and every feather! There we go... And in time, I'm convinced we will find that birds did not come from reptiles or dinosaurs. They are a one-of-a-kind creature specifically engineered with the ability to fly in the sky above us, and that they were made to Wow and entertain us! Lost you in the pelicans. There you go... Nice one! There we go getting our wings. There we go, good job! Birds were made to fly, Ravens are some of the best at it! Huey played hard and then he rested. I find the wild birds doing exactly the same. For me, there's nothing more exciting than getting up in the morning, knowing I'm going to have a special lunch with my wife, a dinner out with friends, a party where I get to show someone how to cook or make something fun, or a day with the Ravens. Now notice in each and every one of those activities I know I'm going to be getting involved in a learning and sharing relationship. This is one of those areas we must leave much of our science behind. Because living relationships are not scientific. Real-life relationships are one-of-a-kind, non-repeatable life experiences that come and go every day! Good, oh yeah that's beautiful. That's good! Now what are you gonna do? It's gonna be interesting? During this last part of spring the young birds are only a few weeks old and already they are turning towards almost a teenager like existence. Not quite so dependent on mom and dad yet still looking for a handout. Depending on how early they fledged, sometimes we can find them already out roaming around the neighborhood territories causing trouble with the neighborhood kids. The parents in these other territories are not so happy and they do their best to keep the uninvited troublemakers out. I think every neighborhood has a kid whose mom or dad used to call or whistle for them to come home. Raven parents do it too and here we see Gus and Lisa retrieving their kids from Harold and Maude's territory. And just like teenagers, even when the kids are at home, they are beginning to spend more time away from mom and dad. Some choose to pair up and roam together, others tend to spend more time all alone. Nice move! And during this time they're also learning to cache. And Ravens excel at caching. That is to hide something away where hopefully no one else can find it. That looks like a good hiding place. Huey did it all the time and with just about everything and anything he could find And for years after he left every once. in a while we'd find some trinket in some odd spot where he had hidden something. The wild Ravens cache for all sorts of reasons. I love to watch the kids find something, pick it up, hold it high so everyone else can see it, and maybe, just maybe someone else will want it, and a new game begins. If not no worries, we'll just take it and cache it! Now seagulls don't cache so even though a raven will cache something right in full view of a seagull, the gull won't go and get it! But another raven will. Both the young Ravens and the juveniles seem to need to get their last bits of energy out before the sun goes down. I see this at The Cove and everywhere else I go. It reminds me of kids right as mom and dad are trying to get them to bed, and get them to brush their teeth, and of course they're off running in every direction except the one mom and dad want them to go. Did I tell you the runt is usually the last to bed? I found out by watching Huey that he naturally developed somewhat of a territory issue. He felt he was in charge of a fairly good-sized area around our property. Nothing could be in or stay in that loosely designated area that he didn't want to be there. iI took me no time at all to figure out that the wild mated couples are even more defined in their version of what they would call their territory. I began making a record of this in 2004 at the park and I've kept pretty close records ever since. It's kind of fun to watch what the different Ravens will do each year and how their territories are defined. Over the years it's actually changed more than what I would have expected. More Ravens have come and gone... and there was a period of time I was pretty amazed as to how crowded the beach scene actually got. Although the park is larger, I only keep records of the mating couples that nest and raise their young on the beachfront section of the park. That's just under four miles long and although the beach goes back hundreds of yards, the Ravens territory goes back further into the hills. Here's what it looked like at its peak, and here's what it looked like this year in 2017. The kids pretty much stick within their parents territory for most of spring but by summer they are now venturing off into the other couples territories. And they seem to know exactly what they are doing. Of course the other couples don't like it and they will spend some serious energy trying to oust the invaders. There are times when it can get quite heated, and once in a while an adult Raven will attack the young of another brood. I have never witnessed one hurting another bird but sometimes it sounds kind of scary. For the most part these territories are well respected by the other adult Ravens. Wow over the water? You guys going over the water? Goodness gracious look at that? There are a few times when exceptions will take place. Maybe once a year but not every year I'll see a whole group of juveniles as they make their way through the park. In instances like these there are just too many of them for any of the couples to do anything about it. This was way back in 2005 and there's about 25 young birds here. A sighting like this is extremely rare in my area. The number two exception might be during the mating season. Other ravens will come into the territories. The other mate will run the intruders out but here again sometimes there's just too many of them and they might hang around for a while. And now for the number one reason as to why there might be other Ravens in a guarded couples territory. It's simple, Ravens gather together to play! The adults will forego territorial boundaries when there's a really good wind picking up and numerous neighboring adults will gather to ride the thermals together! Ravens have a one-of-a-kind dive that all Ravens repeat in every area I've ever been to, and yet I can't recall ever seen another bird doing the same dive these Ravens do. What they do is fold their wings, roll over, dive towards the earth and then right themselves again. All seemingly for fun! I's not limited to sex, the guys do it and then the girls do it right afterwards. Another fascinating thing about this is it's strictly the adults that do this. There we go. Beautiful! You gone do one too? Huh you do one too? Dive for me? Who says females don't do it? Okay, let me show you what it looks like from the birds point of view. If you're prone to motion sickness, I suggest you close your eyes just about now! I find this dive absolutely fascinating, I call it the bomb. My buddy Huey and I used to play many different games. Fact is, play is a big part of every young Ravens day. Young Ravens will hop and poke and play until food is present, then they will run over and eat quickly, then immediately run back to doing what they were doing before they had been interrupted I Nice move. It doesn't matter if it's on the ground, in the air, or more often and not a combination of both back and forth. And I can just watch them for hours! By mid-summer the kids start getting braver and venture out and will also meet and play together daily. Let's spend a little time up in the hills up behind the park. Whoa whoa did you see that? Whoa! In this area no couple seems to have this territory all to themselves, so a number of families will sometimes gather here and they'll all play together. Now we got a chase. Of course if somebody finds something specific the game just gets more intense. Look at that, he keeps passing it back and forth from his mouth to his feet. Not sure which way he wants to carry it. He just keeps passing back and forth like he's teasing the others siblings. That's what Huey used to do with the crows except the crows were more relentless. They seemed to just gather together just to play! Phis is what I really love about Ravens! I love to watch as they find something and then as if to say I look this is something really special and then they'll hold it up high for all to see in hopes that somebody else will take an interest and then hopefully they'll come and try and take it! Or one jumps on top of some pole or stick and you watch because you know the challenge will most likely be met at least by one or two of the other siblings. And then there's the tail pulling. Ravens are masters at pulling tails. Okay get his tail, yeah get his tail, there we go, get that seagull! And they will pull the tails of anything in everything including wolves, eagles condors, otters and other animals far larger and stronger than themselves. They of course learn this right from the beginning and they practice it on each other, and in my area the seagulls are the favorite game. These are baby Ravens, about seven weeks old out of the nest, picking on full-grown adults seagulls! And here is a favorite. You'll see a young Raven, with food, putting the food down so the seagull can see it, waiting until the seagull takes a number of steps towards it, and then right before the seagull gets there he'll snatch it up and take it away! You tease, just like Scotty with the handkerchief! I noticed Huey developed routines where he liked to do certain things at specific times of the day. I watched the wild birds to see if they'd do the same. Sure enough I find the wild birds doing something very similar, and by mid-summer the young Ravens are in somewhat of a routine. This made them easy to find for me because no matter what time I arrived at the park, I'd have a pretty good idea where they most likely might be. Like Huey, they get up about first light and play, and feed for a while. Then sometime between eight and nine they'd head for the area in their territory where there was fresh water available. For Harold mods kids that would be where Harold and Maude first nested in this beautiful Canyon where there's a water source. For the Moro couple it's this little pond. Like Huey, they didn't bathe every day but they did still head to the same fresh water source close to the same time most every day. As always it was playtime before, during, and after! Ravens go through a moulting and lose their down feathers. There's been a couple of really hot years where I really worried there was something wrong with the birds. For a time they can get pretty scraggly looking. But as we will see in fall when the new feathers grow in they look richer and fuller than ever! Now is the time the dominant ones become more feisty. The lesser ones become more subservient and kind of step out of the ways of the ones that are more aggressive. Both play and food become a little rougher. Discipline also gets rougher and tougher and both mom and dad start to lose patience. The parents also begin to purposely not feed the kids and will sometimes bicker with them and even chase them away from a food source.But something else happens during this time and it amazes me even though it happens every year. Huey, our bird would sit for half an hour to an hour and just talk ... talk talk talk Raven - Hewwoo, ... Person - Hello! Raven - Hewwoo ... Person - Hello ... Raven - Hewwoo ... Person - Hello! Most all the Ravens in the park will take time to make noise at me for one reason or another. Maude does something like this ... Harold more like this ... thank you. Gonna talk to me this morning? (Bird makes rattling clicking sound) There we go, do it again! (Bird repeats it) Thank you! Imagine my surprise when I began to learn that every single year one of the young birds, Most often the runt but sometimes more than one of them will sit and yak for anywhere from five minutes to an hour! Young ravens making numerous unique sounds... Any stories tell me? You do? Examples of ravens from each year making numerous different sounds... He's been doing this for about 45 minutes. Hi, wanna give me a click? Thank you! More fun sounds... I love it when your "roooolll" like like that. I love this time of year... I'm totally baffled that a wild bird will just sit there and talk for an hour or so. As I said before sometimes I'll just set up my camera and let it run. This is another one of those areas where I learned I have to leave the science behind because as a scientist, I couldn't sit and enjoy the moment. I'd ruin it trying to figure out something that I'd never be able to really figure out. It makes me wonder what else I might be missing in nature because sometimes I'm so busy trying to figure things out that I'm not taking the time to pay attention to many of the truly magical things that are going on right around me! So, I've become comfortable with the fact that there is magic in this world and that miracles do happen with those willing to look for them.(Well hello...) Life with these birds has taught me I can't, nor do I need, to know it all! For me that was a very freeing realization. good Good morning ... How are you? Raven making numerous sounds ... The young Ravens continue through what I would call their juvenile stage. I call them juveniles for the entire time they are out of the nest but still under the adults care, protection, and the adults still choose to feed them. Kind of like a teenager in high school. Their flying skills continue to improve, especially for the ones who go out and visit the neighbor kids. But still the neighbor parents aren't too happy about the friends over after school and they'll run them out of their territory. Sometimes right away, sometimes they'll let them play for a bit and then they'll run them out. Tthe length of this juvenile stage varies year to year. I've seen the adults begin kicking them out as early as two months after they start to fly. One year they started flying in May and they were booted out in early July. But I'm usually seeing the kids leave somewhere between August and October. However there have been exceptions like in 2009 I had a very special group of six juvenile Ravens that chose to stay in the park much longer than normal. They drove all the adult couples crazy. Because there was so many of them, the parents couldn't kick them out. I called them the terrorists! The terrorists were a ragtag group of some of the silliest birds I had ever seen in the park. These guys and gals would terrorize every adult couple throughout the entire park.They pretty much stayed together the whole time so it was six against two and all the adults were at their mercy. The terrorists generally spent most of their time in Harold and Maude territory and I think there are at least two but maybe three there were actually Harold and Maude kids. The other three or four members I have no idea where they came from. They had very distinct markings that I wasn't familiar with. Now these goofballs would knowingly make daily pestering ventures into all the other adults beachfront properties. They'd meander along just like a gang of teenager with nothing better to do than just hang out. The poor adults would be beside themselves in fits trying to figure out how to deal with them! Sometimes the adults would fly at them as a team with everything they had hoping to dislodge enough of them so that the entire group would move on. But many times the entire gang would use the same defense an adult Raven uses against one of its most respected enemies, the peregrine falcon, and that is to ground itself making the Falcons typical dive at them and hit them out of the sky, sky attack extremely difficult. So the terrorists would just sit like a gang on the hill and let the proprietors just fume. Other times they'd engage in what looked like World War I biplanes in dogfights but the juveniles were excellent fliers by now and it was still six to two so the terrorists just wear the adults out. I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to still see six juveniles still in the park in December. And then I was laughing about the whole thing when I saw them after New Year's and was wondering how long the adults were going to take it? The group was even getting kind of rough with each other. The area the gang had kind of taken over was in Harold in Maude's territory and Harold and Maude didn't seem to try and visit that part of the park much anymore. Some of them got very possessive and selfish with food. They picked on each other and the hierarchy became very pronounced. Two of the birds had obvious physical problems. I called one gimpy foot, and the other broken wing. One of the other birds bullied both of them pretty regularly. Another one had soft rings around the eyes and another one white patches on the backs of its legs. I called that one no knees. All six of you still here? By February I was beginning to wonder why are you guys still here? I even tried chasing them to see what their reaction would be that didn't scare 'em at all but I noticed they became high on alert. Perhaps they knew they weren't supposed to be here. Finally, partway into March they were just all of a sudden gone. No knees? Is that you? Naawww... Is that you? How could that be? Huh? Now as fall comes to an end, and with the exception of 2009 all the kids are gone and I call the stage they go through now kind of their sub adult stage. They are no longer reliant on the parents for food, and in fact the parents have kicked them out of the territory. In April and it took a trip up to Irvine Park which is about 15 miles north of Crystal Cove. They're known for having a fairly large population of Ravens all year long. One started following me, and by the call, and the seeming recognition, and by the markings on the bird, I wondered if it was one of the terrorists that had moved up here. Is that you No-Knees? (Raven makes calls...) Can I see those knees again? (Ravens in trees making calls...) So now these sub or pre adults have learned to pretty much take care of themselves. I can see myself in your eye. Many of them still have some pink in their mouths. Eventually that pink will go entirely black. This is the stage in their life when I don't get to spend as much time with them as I'd like to. Other than the one year when the terrorists were in the park for so long I don't have constant contact with this group because the adults in Crystal Cove run them all out. A group of them may attempt to pass through but they are usually attacked and asked to leave rather quickly. Winter is generally a time of peace and tranquility for the Ravens at Crystal Cove. All the adults finally have their entire beachfront property to themselves. The exceptions of course are years like 2009 when you have groups like the terrorists that hung around for so long. Who are you? Must be one of the kids from last year, there we go, nice one, nice one, like that, good job! But in a normal year the juveniles have been kicked out and are gathering together in crow like gangs somewhere outside the park. So the park adults get a few months to live just the two of them. Now, I get to see Ravens really be Ravens. It baffles me the loyalty these birds demonstrate towards each other. I would call it a type of love but it's not so much romantic love as it is devotional love. These birds work together as a team to keep their territory free of other Ravens. And to drive out competitive predators like bobcats, coyotes and hawks. In the park they are almost always together as a pair. One may run off to another area in the park for a short time but generally if I can see one of the birds the other is sure to be close by. And during certain times of the day they sit very close making all kinds of noises and preening one another. To watch these birds work side by side to raise a family each and every year is an amazing thing in itself but add to that the fact that three of the families I work with; Harold and Maude, Gus and Lisa and the Moro couple, all six of these adults have been loyal to each other since at least 2004 when I started keeping photographic and video records. Harold and Maude have been together a little longer, but I know from traveling back and forth between Newport and Laguna, Gus and Lisa have been together much longer! Lots of little Ravens huh? Off somewhere outside the park the sub or pre-adult Ravens gather together in gangs until they find a mate and then go and work to carve out a territory for themselves. Interesting year, we got newbies. When these newbies or first-time couples come into the park and try to establish an area they have to get it by the already well-established couples. As I mentioned earlier I've had as many as seven mating couples on the four-mile Crystal Cove beachfront. I've also had as few as three. Because my adult birds at the park have been together so long I don't get to see much in the way of beginning courtship behavior. What I do see each and every year is what seems to be a testing period where usually two different couples sometimes more will get together and sort of fly with each other. Sometimes for about 20 minutes or so other times for longer. They eventually pair off again and go back into their own territory. But take Harold and Maude, they may spend some time in the morning flying with the Moro's. Later I may see them doing the same with Gus and Lisa. And in the afternoon I may see them way in the back of the hills flying with another couple back there. What exactly it means I can't say. I do know that in the end, Harold and Maude, Gus and Lisa and the Moro's have all ended up with their original partner. Then the territory seemed to be drawn up and for the rest of the year they are protected and defended by each couple. In fact, in most cases defending the territory even takes priority over a food source. Nest-building seams to begin right after the squabbles for mate and territory are settled and over. Both birds participate bringing different sizes of twigs and sticks from a number of different areas. I always wonder why, when there are so many trees so close, they tend to go quite a long distance to other areas to get what they want. I'll even see them going to another Ravens nest to steal what other couples have either collected this year or left in last year's nests. Ravens are also known to line their nests with different kinds of material including fur from bobcats, coyotes, and many other animals that share the territory. And now mating season begins. The mating of birds and especially Ravens is pretty boring. Once in a while I might get some advance notice. The male may bring some sort of toy, tidbit to eat and she might do a little tail wagging to say she's ready but then it's just hop on touch the parts under the tail rather quickly and off we go. It all happens so quickly that out of them many times I've observed it I've only been able to record it a couple of times. By the time I turn on my camera and it warms up to readiness, even though that's only a matter of seconds, they're already done. Now keep in mind we are talking the animal world here not the human world where there are supposedly a contract between couples, so it shouldn't be misread as some sort of adultery when there have been a few times when both I and others in the park have seen mating between birds that aren't couples. For example I did see Maude get surrounded by a group of birds and the one that mated with her right on the nest was not Harold. In fact Harold was off getting food at the time and he came back a short time later and then drove off all the intruders. I also witnessed Maude with Gus one time. But for the most part, my time with the birds would suggest that most mating takes place pretty exclusively between the pair. During this mating time the eggs get laid by the female and the whole process starts all over again. Or at least that's pretty much the way it's been for all the couples in the park until the season of 2017. I lost for the first time since I started videotaping the birds in 2004 my first adult Raven that I know of. Unfortunately it happened to be my favorite bird in the park, Maude of Harold and Maude. She went missing three weeks after the young were hatched. Did she just up and leave? Was she killed? No clues anywhere so I just don't know. Harold then spent weeks feeding the young all by himself. Then two things happened which have never happened before. First, another bird began helping Harold feed the young, stepmom? She's obviously new so I can't expect her to tolerate me but she's much louder and a little more skittish than most of the birds I've worked with. Where did she come from? hHw did Harold find her? Especially in this time of the year when most couples are raising young together? Could it be a young adolescent. This brings up many more questions than answers. The second thing that happened was what I consider one of the worst nightmares for me. One of Harold's young broke or badly bruised its wing on the very first day out of the nest. So in essence, the story continues in a whole new direction. I will certainly be missing old friends but I will be welcoming in new ones. When I started this project 15 years ago I thought I could tell a story and then like all stories there would be an end. The problem with these birds is the story never really ends. And there's always more to learn from the Raven! I hope you've enjoyed our year with the Ravens as much as I've enjoyed sharing it You can keep up with our continuing animal adventures on our YouTube channel theravendiaries all one word and then get out there and make some of your own! (Goes into Antonio Vivaldi's dramatic violin music from the Four Seasons, Winter...)
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Channel: theravendiaries
Views: 200,572
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: ravens, nature, animal behavior, wildlife
Id: KBFmCDcXzok
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 79min 14sec (4754 seconds)
Published: Sun Apr 29 2018
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