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Bird's-Eye View: On a winter day dreary, ponder the raven's lore
David Disher Photo
A raven takes to the air at Winston-Salem's Elledge Wastewater Treatment Plant.
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Published: January 6, 2009
"In the beginning there was nothing. Only water, darkness and the Raven."
Native people in the West told that story. An Inuit myth similarly describes the raven as a trickster who stole the sun and stars to create light in the sky.
The raven has fascinated humans for a long time, as tales from all parts of the world attest.
The common raven, or Northern raven, belongs to the Corvid family, which also includes crows, jays and magpies. It's our largest songbird, if you consider its croaking sounds songs. It looks much like our everyday American crow, but it is larger and has a thicker bill, shaggy throat feathers and a wedge-shaped tail. Ravens are most easily distinguished from crows when they fly because of the tail shape -- crows' tail tips are more square -- and their minimal flapping of wings.
The range of the common raven extends across large areas of North America, Eurasia, Central America and North Africa. Land-clearing and shooting chased these birds from much of the northeastern United States more than 100 years ago, but they continued to breed in the Appalachians and now are moving back to other parts of the East.
Hanging out more in cities
Twenty-five years ago, ravens nested no closer to Winston-Salem than Pilot Mountain State Park. Now there are at least three nest sites within city limits, and ravens sometimes wander to other areas of the Piedmont. Their omnivorous diet of grain, fruit, insects, birds' eggs, small animals, carrion and food waste has allowed them to survive across forests, tundra, rocky cliffs, deserts, and increasingly, more densely populated areas.
There are other raven species and several subspecies of the common raven. Interestingly, genetic studies indicate that those in North Carolina and most of the continent are more closely related to ravens of Europe and Asia rather than to ravens in California and the Southwest. This could be explained by separate migrations across Bering Sea land bridges from Asia. Scientists think that the common ravens of California arrived over 2 million years ago and likely were cut off from later arrivals. The smaller Chihauhan raven of the Southwest apparently evolved from the California group into a separate species.
Ravens are aerial acrobats. During courtship, the male soars, swoops and even somersaults in the air. The female then joins the male soaring high into the sky. Back on ground, they often touch bills and preen each other's feathers. Even in early fall, long after breeding season, it is a thrill to see the flight antics of ravens soaring and gliding around Pilot Mountain's Big Pinnacle.
A couple generally mate for life. They build a large stick nest, usually on a high ledge or rock cliff, or in a tall conifer tree. Urban nesters will find a local quarry or the eaves of a building. The female lays three to seven eggs as early as mid-February, and the male feeds his partner during the three-week incubation period. Both parents feed the chicks until they leave the nest five or six weeks after hatching.
Ravens and their crow cousins are considered to be among the most intelligent birds. Ravens' brains are proportionately larger than those of nearly all other species. Like the bird in Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem, they can mimic human language. They have been observed manipulating others to do their work; for example, calling wolves and coyotes to open an animal carcass. They also steal food caches of other ravens, as well as such objects as pieces of metal and golf balls.
Their intelligence and interaction with humans account for their presence in folklore and literature around the world. A raven failed Noah in his search for land, but Vikings carried them on voyages for the same purpose and their god Odin kept a couple to learn about the world. Other Western cultures view this black scavenger as an omen of bad luck, bad weather or death. The British seem to have mixed feelings. Although a group of ravens is called an "unkindness," they are kept at the Tower of London to protect against the fall of the kingdom.
To learn more about ravens and their place in world cultures, I recommend, In the Company of Crows and Ravens, by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell.
■ Bird's-Eye View is a joint column by Ron Morris and Phil Dickinson. Today's column was written by Dickinson. Dickinson is a legal writer. He has been an active birder for 15 years, and is a past president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County and heads the conservation committee. Morris retired after 24 years as curator at the N.C. Zoo. He has studied birds around the world and is currently the vice president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County. If you have a birding question or story idea, write to Bird's-Eye View in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27101-3159, or send an e-mail to birding@wsjournal.com. Please type "birds" in the subject line.
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