Ravenous in California
June 7, 1998
 |
| Raven |
The chipmunks were busy. Along the highway down from Lassen Volcanic National Park, several scampered off the highway as we descended the steep, winding, mountain road. But when they reached the edge of the road, they faced an insurmountable, vertical wall of ice and snow from 10 to 30 feet deep. The snow plows had been very busy this spring. Anyway, the chipmunks were sort of trapped in this ditch of ice resulting from the 34 feet of snow received there this winter. "What a wonderful opportunity for a hungry predator," I thought. Then a large raven flew up from the highway in front of us and landed on a low branch of a large conifer beside the road. Yes, it had a chipmunk in its beak and it began to tear at the skin as we watched. It showed no great remorse that the chipmunk was still alive as it began to feed on the squirming little body held tightly by a large raven foot. The word "ravenous" seemed to be the best term to describe the activity of this omnivore. The origin of the word "ravenous" now became abundantly clear.
But do ravens get a "bum rap?" Don't many animals eat hungrily and rapaciously? Why is it that the raven has become a symbol of gluttony and death? Apparently during the Dark Ages in Europe, when our ancestors were dying like flies of the various plagues, ravens were observed to eat unburied human cadavers. Thus ravens became associated with death and have since often been used as a symbol of death in our art and literature. But I find them very beautiful, interesting, and intelligent birds.
Pat's response to this act of predation was interesting. "Poor little chipmunk," she said. Pat and I are representatives of possibly the most ferocious predator in the history of the earth - the human species. Yes, we not only kill for food -- we kill for fun. We especially choose some of the most beautiful and magnificent animals to kill. Not only do we kill, we eradicate! Entire species are gone to satisfy our hunger for food, money, and power. Our homes, museums, and larders serve as a repository for the dried bodies and cut up the flesh of our prey. Sure, some other predators also kill for fun, but there are probably more of us than ravens and other large predators. Aren't we supposed to be "thinking animals?" How is it that we automatically side with the soft, cute, cuddly little prey species? Is it so difficult to think of raven chicks in need of sustenance?
There was one particularly tame raven at the snack bar in Yosemite National Park. As we drank our hot chocolate in the drizzly, cool afternoon, it perched on the railing beside our table, waiting for a handout. If it ate all the cheeseburgers and french fries that little children dropped when their parents were not looking, this raven might find it necessary to fly about 30 miles to work off the excess calories. Otherwise, it would become too fat to fly and little boys would find it an easy target for their rocks. Yes, it seems instinctive for little boys to throw rocks at ravens and other birds. It is probably some biological imperative and this behavior may even be encoded in their genes. It seems to be necessary for parents to "tame" little boys and civilize them so that they will not throw rocks at ravens in National Parks.
Ravens are abundant in California. As we have traveled through Canada and the USA, I often feel fortunate to see a single raven and hear its "quark, quark, quark" vocalizations. But yesterday I saw a very large flock of maybe 30 ravens flying over the Highway 101 freeway. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of mating ritual. Pairs within the flock would fly high and dive together. Since I was traveling at the requisite 70 mph speed of Highway 101 and there was no place to park along the highway, I could not follow the behavior in any detail. Under these conditions when I see some interesting wildlife while driving the freeways and highways, Pat kindly watches the other cars and the cliffs along the highway while I observe the wildlife. Any slight deviation in my driving behavior brings a quick response. "Watch out!" calls my mate. So far this formula has worked for quickly correcting any errant behavior.
In the Redwood National Park, there is a stretch of highway along the beach where campers can camp for free in an area adjacent to the highway. Assorted motor homes, trailers, hippie vans and poor folks hang out there. Apparently, they too feed their excess cheeseburgers to the ravens, because there was a pair of ravens that were quite tame and fairly easy to approach. I approached them carrying a bag of rancid trail mix. Squatting by a sand dune, I threw out a peanut. Half expecting that I was trying to lure it within rock-throwing range, the larger raven sidled warily toward the nut in the sand. A couple of times it jumped and flew back a few feet as if a rock were flying at its head. Finally, it lunged at the peanut, snatched it from the sand, crunched it easily, with its heavy beak and swallowed all the crunched morsels without losing a single piece. Then it took a couple of raisins and some sunflower seeds that I left on a log. It was an adventure to see such a large raven up so close.
Often as we travel, we question the identity of some large, black bird -- is it a crow or raven? We found them rather difficult to distinguish at a distance. But now we are more confident in separating crows from ravens. The raven is generally much larger than the crow. When flying overhead, the wedge-shaped tail of the raven separates it from the rounded tail of the crow. As it flies, the wing strokes are slower on the raven. The throat pouch of the raven is also much larger and it "quarks" while crows "caw."
Smaller birds really fear ravens almost as much as they fear sharp-shinned hawks. Apparently ravens readily take and eat the chicks of birds if they find the nest. Redwing blackbirds are especially protective of their nests and will chase ravens unmercifully. I watched a raven steal an egg from the nest of a mallard hen, carry it some distance away, crack the egg with a blow of its mighty beak, and eat the chick inside. As I approached to observe the process more closely, the raven would not leave until it gobbled the last morsel, then flew away quickly in case I had a rock hidden in my hand. Ravens seem to know human predators very well.
Of course, crows will also eat baby animals. At Patrick's Point State Park near Trinidad, CA, we watched a crow try to fly away with a young rabbit it had captured. The rabbit was so large that the crow could not lift it into the air. As we approached, the crow finally left the little rabbit, which struggled on wobbly legs back to the protection of a blackberry bush. When we returned to the same spot a few minutes later, an adult rabbit was confronting the crow - apparently to protect its baby. It seemed a little "out of character" for this rabbit to become aggressive against the depredations of the crow. But there it was, eyeball to eyeball with this black, rabbit killer. Throughout the animal world, mothers often become aggressive in defense of their babies. This rabbit was no exception to the rule.
"Quoth the raven, nevermore?" Nope! Not really! They say quark, quark, quark.
No comments:
Post a Comment