This is just a short note about birds.
I am very interested in birds, but I know very little about them.
In Grass Valley, we had wild turkeys and peacocks. The wild turkeys had 10 or 11 babies every year and we were able to watch them parade around as the babies grew.
The peacocks, well, I loved them! Bob in particular. He would perch on the stairwell outside my bedroom and gawk at me. Here is a former blog about Bob.
I miss those birds.
This is Bob perched on the stairwell outside the master bedroom of the Grass Valley house.
IN PASO ROBLES…
In Paso, we have robins and ravens.
I’ve written about the robin’s nest outside my office. There were 2 rounds of babies last year. I wrote about that here.
And, we have Heckyl and Jeckyl, the two ravens. These guys are always in our pastures, flying around and perching on things. I’ve tried to become friends but so far, they aren’t too interested.
I really want to get to know them because I know they are intelligent. If they like you (if you feed them), they bring you gifts (shiny or colorful things, mostly).
This morning, there were 3 ravens sitting on the fence posts! So, I grabbed a tin of sunflower seeds that I have on the ready in case I have a raven encounter… and walked very, very slowly towards them…
…and then Scouty saw these intruders and ran after them crouched low, barking. Yep, the ravens flew away. Scouty was very proud of her good deed.
This is one of the ravens at the Paso Robles house. Two are always flying around. I”m trying to make friends…
Agreed! They are ravens per call and shape of beak. Thank you for this information! I saw that PBS special a while back.
So interesting!
Are they truly ravens? Or actually crows? Ravens are rather large birds. They have different vocalizing than crows (check out birdnote.com). If crows, and you want to know more about these highly intelligent birds there was a PBS Nature show which is entertaining and very informative. Here’s a hint: they remember human faces and are not hesitant to carry a grudge against their enemies (esp. human “enemies”). They will eat, or at least sample, just about everything edible including spilled grain, and might snatch a bit of apple right under the horses’ noses. Because they are corvids they can be an early warning of the presence of active West Nile Virus – if you start seeing crows that aren’t acting normally, or worse have died, please notify your state veterinarian’s office (Cal Dept of Ag, I think) and arrange to have any dead crows sent for examination for that horrible disease in the interest of protecting your own horses (and even humans!)