Don Juan del Moro

Don Juan?

A feather-eared maiden--nevermore?

The young Moro, the eldest of the ravens born at the beach this year (I think he must be about two and a half to three months old), is turning into a handsome fellow. Instead of his mother, "looking [at him] a lecture," she rather seems dazed by his beauty.

Instead of scolding when he made a  foolish cache that was quickly scarfed by a seagull, she seemed glued to her rock-perch, admiring the unscarred sleekness of his outspread wings as he jumped and the rise of his finely developed beak in outrage. El Moro Padre meanwhile made it a rule to follow the trail of his son's dinner, refusing to allow any edible speck to go to waste, that seagull theft being the exception. I have watched him gather his son's caches and re-cache them himself in less discoverable spots. The Grogs also keep a good watch on their young's caching, playing the devil's advocate if not just enjoying a morsel themselves.

Also, I have noticed the ravens crunching tiny bits of seashells. I imagine there is something in them to compensate a lack in their diet. When I saw El Moro land on a brittle bush with flimsy looking branches, I was reminded of their lightweight and hollow bones (the average adult raven weighs about two and a half pounds) despite their largeness among birds. His son even joined him there to beg for food. Raven parents appear completely unselfish in their feeding.

The Inkling mother is looking haggard with the constant care of her nestlings. She has a near-bald band above her eyes which gives her an exaggerated air of care. Yet, when she makes "ears" to assert herself by depressing most of her headfeathers except tufts above and behind the eyes, Lenore's definitely stand out (not enough to get her to a head-dresser because to Edgar Allan Inkling she is a radiant maiden evermore).