To call the Common Raven 'common' sounds rather dismissive to this gleaming black bird.
Common Ravens are widespread over the Northern Hemisphere from Mexico, the western United States, all of Canada and Alaska, and continuing into Russia.
A huge exception to the Common Ravens' range are the Great Plains States and most of the south.
They are large birds, half-again the size of crows, highly intelligent and adapted to living alongside humans.
They are both graceful in flight and playfully acrobatic. One Common Raven was reported to have flown upside down for a half mile*.
(picture intentionally inverted)
(Click any picture to enlarge.)
This pair is nesting under a noisy and well used bridge in Oro Valley, Arizona. A pair nested here last year, too, but I'm not sure this is that same couple.
An assortment of large sticks and vegetation resting atop industrial plumbing forms their six foot nest.
One of the pair, I'm assuming the female, flushed as I passed under the bridge surprising both of us, but thankfully allowing for a picture.
She circled once beneath the bridge, perhaps to evaluate my intentions, before departing with a sharp verbal croak.
The fact that she was 'on the nest' and not 'building the nest' leads me to believe she may be sitting on eggs.
That is important bird work.
I left her alone.
Like the female, the male raven, if I have their sexes straight, wasn't all that thrilled with my presence either.
Using a street light for a perch, he projected a Poe-envoking posture that wasn't hard to read.
I must have been slow in my retreat though.
The female returned to escort me out from beneath the bridge, loudly croaking a second message to leave and return...
Nevermore!*
Allan
Credits:
*https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Raven/overview
*https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven
No comments:
Post a Comment