Ravens Evermore

Almost there

Upon returning south, I went with my binos to check the nest: black evermore! Couldn't see the forest for the feathers! At first I thought both raven parents must be perching with their backs to me, examining their young. But the Grog parents were to my right in the sycamore tree, agog in affection. So what I was seeing at the nest were two enormous Grog nestlings who were perching on a branch next to their nest.

From my distant balcony seat, they looked like two phantoms of the opera, swathed in black feathered capes  with a mere white outline of beak for identification (later their bills will turn completely black). Two more were resting in the nest, or at least that is what I could see. There might be more. The Grog infants are so big that they might have to take turns to sleep in their nest. The two on the branch made no effort to test their wings while I was watching. It was much the same at the El Moro nest but with only one nestling showing his new black velvet coat and white smile.

This morning I did see Sunshine doing some sample short-distance flying from the nest to another tree. No young Grog followed. Both sets of raven parents are looking rather haggard and run down, particularly the mothers. It's not hard to see why. The nestlings looked to me to be about the same size as the parents. Imagine having to feed them all and get a bite in for oneself, too. I did watch Sunshine cough up a cached pellet, various bits held together with her saliva. She had retrieved it from a palm tree, coughed it and then carried it nestward: not a rabenmutter, leaving her young, but a responsible provider.

*photo of a fledged Grog last year, courtesy of theravendiaries.com

In the flowers

In the fading wildflowers back home

Away for a week, I have been watching the skies for ravens. Yesterday, I followed several to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. I had noticed some ravens there before and also had met with a friendly raven couple at the top of Twin Peaks with the exquisite expanse of San Francisco below.

In Golden Gate Park, massive with its wonderfully thick cypress and great redwood, eucalyptus, and fir trees, I could hear ravens calling. I saw some aerial displays and hawk chasing. Ravens know if they are being watched. I had been searching with my binos what I thought might be a raven nest. But I believe the raven saw me and kept away.

He did come down near a newly planted flower bed. I watched him jump the fence and check out the one dahlia shoot. I had a bit of bread left from my sandwich and so left it for him. As I was about to leave, he walked calmly up to it. (He did no 'jumping jacks', a manner of hopping up and down around an unfamiliar object to see if it moves or is dangerous. Ravens teach this to their young.) The bread was about two feet from me. He took it and casually walked to the nearest puddle where he began soaking it before tearing the softened bread into smaller pieces. He then flew off in a circular route back around to the tall trees behind the Conservatory, I imagine to his nest.

As I left the gardens and its conservatory of foreign flowers and plants, I thought those familiar black wings circling it might be our own exotic option.

Upside Down

As I ended my last post on the raven's aerial acuity, I had to post the photo just given to me by my photographer friend of El Moro's back flying. (If you click on it to enlarge you will see him better.) Imagine his nestling learning that! So far, there appears to be just one baby Moro. Below El Extraordinaire Moro is a photo of both parents and baby Moro at their nest. Their nestling is not feathered out and so younger than the Grog's brood.

Yesterday, I sat with my binoculars searching the Grog nest. Their nest is more obscure than the El Moro's. Earlier yesterday morning with big winds about, I sat with Grog a spell. As he stood still, he smacked the air in an insect feast. The smaller insects he swallowed whole. Then Grog scrounged around the rocks at the cliff edge, finding a bigger creature which he de-winged before clamping shut his beak on it.

I saw an identical movement as I watched the Grog nest--a baby Grog catching a passing fly? Yes, the nest is now wall to wall pitch black with feathered baby Grogs. I caught one stretching a wing and later, one flapping his wings. I counted a definite three bodies but was unable to tell if there were more. I heard one calling to a nearby parent for food and watched Sunshine go to the nest with her throat pouch apparently full, only to change her mind and go cache it. Was she on a strict hourly feeding schedule?

Being feathered out, the Grogs are at least three weeks old, still sleeping much of the time but jostling for position in their increasingly crowded nest, packed so because of their growth. I imagine it will be another few weeks before they attempt to fly.

As parents, the Grogs showed apparent pride as they paired up on a nearby branch after feeding their young. They preened each other, making sweet sounds and joined beaks affectionately. They seemed to be in their own small Eden with the eucalyptus tempering the sea breeze, the cheery bush sunflowers and black mustard, a golden carpet for their claws.

The Ferocity of Flight

 

The full-throated Chase

The Patrol

After the period of relative calm as new beaks were bred and born, I have noticed an increase in aggression between raven neighbors. Sunshine, having broken free of nest sitting, seems particularly active in reasserting the Grog family's territorial rights. She seems ready to take any raven on and this morning gave the El Moros a run for their airspace. Of course, Grog was there to back her up but looking less agitated. I think Sunshine's rugged appearance with her perennial missing feathers reflects her courage and resolve in ravenomics ie. managing Grog resources--food and territory.

Likewise the El Moros, I noticed pushing into Inkling territory, their raven neighbors to the south of them. For most of the breeding period, the El Moros stuck close to the nest and appeared even wary of my presence. Their personalities seemed so altered that I wondered at times if they were different ravens. It was as if their only world was in relation to each other, he increasing his dominance while she acted the weak young thing by adopting a higher, more youthful voice as she begged from him and fluttered her wings.

Today, there was no timidity in sight as both El Moros fought the Inklings over a fish. They swooped at each other, dive-bombing fiercely. If ravens weren't as quick and deft in movement as they are, I imagine they could kill each other with a beak fast as a speeding bullet. Last week, I happened to be close to Grog when he was being attacked by a crow's dive-bomb. The whizzing speed of the crow's blitz was not only impressive but almost frightening. I wouldn't have liked to have been the crow's target. A raven's greater weight and longer beak would make his dive-bomb doubly devastating.

I have read that birds have no fear of the void. The way ravens wield the air, I believe it.

Meet the El Moros

Birth and death seem to go hand in hand. April can be the cruelest month.  Last week, my photographer friend spotted the remains of a baby raven near El Moro's nest. [My last post I introduced El Moro flying with Grog. The El Moro couple is the raven pair I know best after the Grogs. They are nesting in the cliff on a different stretch of the beach to Grog territory.] This sad fact could explain El Moro's dispiritedness early that week. It was noticeable because El Moro is the raven flyer extraordinaire, the ne plus ultra of the air.

Happily, today he soared, tucked his wings and dived innumerable times, doing his favorite flying on his back as he came lower to the cliffs. Then his wife joined him, not one to be outdone. One after the other, they did dives, rolls and back flies--truly breathtaking. One would lead; the other follow. It doesn't take much imagination to see why they chose each other. 

As I wrote before, ravens mate for life. According to Bernd Heinrich's research, a raven chooses her mate carefully. Hunting capability, the promise of providing, of course, comes high on her list. Aerial agility is also important, the ability to chase prey and to evade danger. The sheer beauty of a raven's aerial dexterity might also be a wooing influence.

That the El Moros are able to leave the nest together suggests to me that the nestlings are growing rapidly and don't need the parents' warmth so much as more food now. The Grogs are also both out much of the time. 

And so the counterpoint to the cruel April is the April smitten with flowers and sweet rain, a rare sensation in Southern California. 

New Life

Proud Father

Working Mom

(click to see creature in beak)

I saw one; I saw two!* I had begun to doubt the existence of new life, even questioning the nest--was it a phantom home? Even though I had seen Sunshine's beak tinged with white which led me to believe she had been eating her baby bird's mutes ie. their liquid waste, I still questioned. I had read and watched raven parents do this until the babies grow and mute volume increases to the point that the parents pick the mutes up and carry them off. All this is to keep the nest clean until the nestlings are able to position themselves at the edge of the nest to 'let go' as it were. When the nestlings are that big, I should be able to see them but not yet.

Yesterday, I had spent some time watching from the bushes with my binos but the Grogs patiently spent the same hours watching me watch them, preening themselves, changing positions, calling out. It was if the nest had nothing to do with them, until just before sunset last night. 

At last I saw one--the back of a head and beak raised in supplication. Only when Sunshine finally flew to the nest could I see it. Eureka! New life confirmed. The nest is cleverly hidden with only one angle barely visible and from this angle, most of the nest is behind a great fork of the eucalyptus tree with all its leaves and shadows.

Just prior to my 'vision,' Sunshine had been vigorously tearing up some creature difficult to identify--bird, rabbit or rodent, and putting choice bits in her throat pouch. She then took the rest of the carcass to an adjacent sycamore tree to cache. It's hard to find any cold storage in Southern California but the huge leaves of a sycamore are the best smart bet for a bit of shade near the Pacific. 

I had been questioning the wisdom of the Grog's move from cliff to eucalyptus tree. Their having the sycamore 'fridge' next door to their nest seems not just fortuitous. I think it might have been well-planned. With new life in the balance, the steady supply of fresh food is crucial. The tree fridge takes a little pressure off the parents, not only in their search for food but enables them to spend more time closer to home, guarding their young. This will be crucial with the Cooper's hawks so close. I have watched Grog avoid the hawks by flying within inches of the ground and maneuvering adroitly between the trees.

On the other hand, Arthur Grog seems a nonchalant father. Last night, while Sunshine was picking apart her kill, worrying about the next meal, Grog sat on the hill near me singing (well, like a soft cooing). Of course, he was in a lookout position for the nest. But I thought all he was missing was a fine cigar. 

*The other pink mouth was in the El Moro's nest.

Show your stuff!

Grog & El Moro

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I still have not seen a baby beak stretched to the sky but other indicators seem to verify that some have hatched. The parents are both out, searching for food and Sunshine revelling in her unconfinement ie. flying with apparent abandon and joy even in the same old territory. Besides the pleasure of flying together, being out and about again, there is the serious business of food.

I have noticed male macho displays between raven neighbors, each insisting on its bit of territory. I imagine this is to meet the greater demand on them for food. These male challenges consist of the fluffing of feathers to make them look larger, walking deliberately up to each other with head held high, beak up, and throat feathers poking out, exaggerated by deep swallowing. They puff their 'ears' by flattening their head feathers and so tufts go higher. This seems to precede puffing all their head feathers for greater effect.

Strutting around they makes what is called 'baggy pants', flaring their flank feathers. They also spread their tail feathers and do a bow and click as they try to raise themselves higher than the other. I have watched them hop together along the sand, one trying to seem bigger and more important than the other. Sometimes, one raven tries to 'be greater' by flying to the cliff above the other, only to be followed usually. Today, I saw two end up in an actual fight with feet and beaks at each other. But I haven't seen any real damage as they end up going back to their respective, established territories. Other times, they seem to just forget the competition and go for a fly together, as in the sequence of the photos* above [courtesy of the ravendiaries.com].

Ravens also have what is called a nictitating membrane ie. a third or inner eyelid to protect the eye from dust or keep it moist. They seem to use it to express submission as opposed to the commanding, direct stare. Females flirt with these eyes in courtship. They also pretend to be helpless, mimicking a young bird's begging by crouching and flapping their wings quickly and making higher, more infantile sounds. They do that with the guys, probably to check out how well they provide food, ie. sizing them up. But when with other females, they also have their feather displays and struts which are similar to the guys but the girls seem to make more knocking sounds--two females trying to outdo the other. All is vanity, pull down thy vanity, girls. Smooth those feathers.

*click to enlarge