Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich

Author:Bernd Heinrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061863936
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books

I had made plans years earlier to travel to Yellowstone Park and to Oregon, where colleagues had kindly volunteered to set up carcasses for me to watch wild ravens interacting with naturally occurring competitors and carnivores. Wolves had not yet been reintroduced to Yellowstone, but coyotes there (unlike in Maine) were diurnal, and I was curious how they interacted with ravens. Unfortunately, when it came time to use my airline ticket, I had reached a critical point in a radio-tracking experiment and was unable to leave without putting this ongoing work into jeopardy. However, I found an eager volunteer, Delia Kaye, who gladly accepted the challenge to be my emissary, with the understanding that she would take extensive notes.

Delia went to Yellowstone Park in mid-February 1992, where she was hosted by John Williams, whose team of researchers was studying the pack behavior of coyotes. The park ravens were not food-stressed. As is usual near the end of winter when ravens begin breeding, there were winter-kill elk carcasses all around. These were so abundant that many had no ravens feeding from them at all. The birds apparently preferred only the freshest, just-opened carcasses.

Delia was on hand to see one pack of coyotes begin to tear into a bull elk that had just died. Within several minutes after the coyotes had torn a hole into the neck, two ravens arrived and started feeding as well. The coyotes occasionally lunged at the ravens, but the birds merely jumped aside and came right back. Most of the time, the ravens, whose numbers quickly increased to about a dozen, fed unmolested with the coyotes nearby. The birds seemed surprisingly relaxed in the company of the coyotes.

In Eastern Oregon, the situation was entirely different. Gary Clowers, our host there, had set out a deer carcass near Grandview on the eastern base of the Cascade Mountains. From a blind made near this carcass, Gary and Delia kept watch for four days. No coyotes came, but as many as twenty-six ravens were present at a time. Unlike at Yellowstone but much like in Maine, these birds did not quickly descend to the opened carcass. Instead, they loitered about in the vicinity, acting fearful of the unattended carcass.

Typically, all the ravens assembled on the ground about ten to fifteen yards from the carcass, then started to approach it as a group. Coming closer, two or three birds might haltingly edge toward the carcass, drawing others behind them. Then they would all jump back again and fly off. As in Maine, whenever they drew near the carcass, they walked hesitatingly, opening their bills in fright and performing what looked like numerous jumping jacks. Even on the fourth day, with twenty ravens routinely near the carcass, only two individuals approached it close enough to feed. These results were almost precisely as those I was used to seeing in Maine. But there was a big difference. Instead of all of the crowd eventually ending up at the carcass, most of the ravens got their meat without ever needing to go near the carcass they feared.

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