Fowl Language

Day 106: "And don't sass me back!" The sounds of argument came down to me like a shower of hail as I walked the Bud Blancher Trail this morning. Clearly, someone was having their place in the pecking order explicitly defined with great vigour. Occasionally, I'd hear a mew of complaint, shrill and whiny, quickly followed by a stern command. The playground bully was made to stand in the corner of the classroom, head bowed in humiliation, as the teacher executed a silent repertoire of postures meant to reinforce the rule of the roost. I have never seen a Bald Eagle look as hang-dog as this one, clearly indicating a demotion from alpha by only looking up when both birds were distracted by a low-flying aircraft. After the plane passed, Raven made a gesture of beak-snapping and a head thrust to which the Eagle responded with a resumption of the "downcast eyes" position. Authority was re-established immediately.

The dispute was undoubtedly over feeding privileges. The Nisqually Stream Stewards recently held a "fish toss" nearby, returning frozen salmon carcasses to the waterway as part of a habitat restoration project. Dead fish always draw Eagles: in fact, I counted eight or nine individuals during my six-mile walk. Like other corvids, the opportunistic Ravens are always ready to join the feast and often get into arguments with the larger birds over possession. Intelligence invariably wins out over instinct, and no sensible Eagle will stand up to a Raven for long. This one certainly knew when he was licked!

Missus Comes To Breakfast

Day 248: It was a feeling. At first, I thought that it was because this bird seemed just a little more wary of me than the one in my May 27 post, but then I said to myself, "No, there's some physical difference, I'm just sure of it." When I took the previous image and put it side-by-side with this one, I could see that the beak was a little shorter, the nasal bristles a little more extensive, the top of the head a little more domed and the legs a little more dainty. "Missus!" I exulted. "Missus is off the nest!"

Ravens partner for life. They share nesting duties, and parents are often aided by the previous year's offspring in caring for the newly hatched young. Ravens do not flock like Crows, so if you see several together, they are most likely a family unit. Mister and Missus have been "married" for a couple of years now. I was privileged to watch their courtship and their young love. Let science deny it if they will persist in wearing blinders, the long-term Raven watcher knows that a mated pair holds each other in great affection: kissing, romping, playing good-natured pranks and so on. These behaviours are but a few examples I could cite from my observations of the pair. These birds' first two nests produced no offspring, no baby Ravens for them to educate to Raven language and society under my vigilant eye. Today, though, when Missus left the feeder board and flew into the woods with her crop full of dog food, I heard something which made me smile quite broadly: the high-pitched monosyllablic cry of at least one cranky, hungry baby somewhere near the Courtship Tree.

And All The World Was In Darkness

Day 237: In both hemispheres of the world, Ravens and Crows appear in similar legends regarding the time before man when all the world was in darkness. The stories begin in a cold, lean age when the other animals could not see to find food and had to huddle together for warmth. They convene to discuss what they might do to improve their situation. This theme is consistent in the oral histories passed down by the indigenous cultures of both the Pacific Northwest and of Australia. It diverges somewhat at this point, but the Hero remains the same: a Corvid.

In Aboriginal myth, the Crow either steals fire from the Seven Sisters (a constellation), or a group of crows band together and use forked sticks to lift the blanket of darkness from the Earth, allowing light to creep in. In Native American lore, Raven is the only animal brave enough to meet the challenge of stealing fire from the Sun. In some local variations, Crow/Raven begins as a white bird and is burned black by the fire/sun. In most versions of the legend, supreme intelligence and cleverness are accorded to the Corvid in question, often with the bird being the originator of the idea of the theft.

The exceptional intelligence which Corvids exhibit has caused many negative feelings toward the species. Humans do not like to think of other creatures being equally or more intelligent than they are themselves, or they refuse to recognize an alternate way of thinking as being a cognitive process, attributing it instead to instinct and selective genetics. Those of us who have lived in the company of Crows and Ravens know better. These are highly intelligent beings if, perhaps, on a different level than our own mental functions.

Mister here and his mate Missus have been coming to my feeding station since they were newlyweds several years ago. I observed their courtship, their bonding, and their displays of affection. They kissed beaks and groomed each other; they threw snowballs at each other; they rolled around in the snow like children making snow angels and then touched wings as if holding hands. Now, with several years of married life behind them, they are more subdued in their romance but still sit closely side by side on the fence to await their breakfast. Mister is the braver of the two (and he cautions her to stand back when I am present). He has lost most of his fear of the camera and will even allow me to walk in the yard while he's sitting on the board. I have yet to see them produce any young, but each year at this time, I start listening for the sounds of baby Ravens, the sounds of children learning to speak single syllables to convey complex concepts, things we humans need lengthy sentences to put across.