Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures With Wolf-Birds (15 page)

Number 8130 had become our focus. Our very reason for living at the cabin revolved around our day-to-day surveillance of this one bird. Our conversations revolved around him—a bird only I had actually seen, though he revealed himself to all of us via the radio transmitter attached to his tail. Later, throughout April and early May, whenever I saw him he was with only
one
other bird. Who had the third bird been? A dozen tagged birds might have given us a clue. We could only guess, and we inevitably came back to the apparent breakup of the nesting cycle just at the moment when the eggs were about to be laid.

As we loitered in the evening around the cast iron stove while waiting for fresh bread for supper, our conversation and thoughts about the nest failure ran to the fanciful and jokingly anthropomorphic.

“What do you suppose happened?” someone would ask, and we’d launch into imaginative discussions of various scenarios. For example:

Here she is one night, we reasoned, as always expecting him to come to her side by the nest to feed her and sleep beside her. He doesn’t show up. She becomes hungry and anxious. Finally, long after midnight
he comes back, weak and disheveled, with that strange extra tail feather and a weird shoulder patch. “You been
where?
” she’d ask. He would try to explain. And she’d say, “Yeah—
sure!
” So now he’s all weak and lazy the next morning, just when he is supposed to mate because it’s now time to lay the eggs. But he isn’t interested in sex just yet, nor does he feed her. She eventually sees another male, a neighbor. She displays to him. Feeling acknowledged, he follows her, hopeful. Maybe it is a male from a neighboring pair they both knew already. Maybe it’s an unattached male. In either case, it is a bird that her partner knows, too. So he tolerates him, if she does. The funny part is that this scenario could in principle actually be close to the truth.

Some anecdotes mean more than others, because they are decisive and leave less room for interpretation. The three birds at one nest were not an interpretation. During February, I had at three different times seen groups or a group of five ravens flying together. Later in March, I had twice seen three flying together on the other side of the lake. I had always favored the most probable explanation, that these were groups of juvenile vagrants. Now I wasn’t so sure. More was going on here: Territorial ravens were not always reflexively aggressive to all others outside their pair. But when and why not? I needed to see details of bonding behavior, something that my tame birds might teach me.

M
Y OBSERVATIONS OF THE THREE
birds spurred my desire to understand more about bonding behavior. The best and perhaps only thing I could do for the time being was to engage in long-term observations of the birds I knew well, Goliath and his groupmates and subsequent aviary birds. I already knew my birds were highly attentive to, apparently curious about, and at times aggressive toward strange ravens coming near. Another juvenile raven in the vicinity caused them to watch, listen, and call, and the newcomer usually came down to the aviary. All sorts of social behavior transpired, the nature or purpose of which I didn’t understand. Perhaps the newcomers were interested in the food in the aviary, and the aviary birds were trying to defend their food; but I’m not convinced that this obvious explanation is the right one. The same behavior occurred when no food was visible. When I put food outside in the snow, the newcomers commonly ignored
it, yet interacted with the birds through the wire. They postured at each other as though trying to show off and go through vocal repertoires.

Wandering juveniles are a gregarious lot. By the dozens, and sometimes hundreds, they fly high in the sky riding the updrafts, barrel-roll back down, catch air, and spiral back up. They sky-dance in pairs and sometimes triples during these raven flight “parties.” I have tried to see if the two are stable pairs, or if third birds cut in to exchange partners, but the action is usually too fast and too far away for me to be able to tell. Similarly, apparent pairs come to baits in the morning from communal roosts of juveniles. Could juveniles form pairs? I was skeptical, even though field data had long suggested the possibility. But Goliath and his mates gave me fresh insight on pairing.

Except for mouth color, ravens a month out of the nest look almost identical to adult ravens. Adults can begin to breed at the age of three years, but sometimes do not until seven. Males and females have unisex garb. We can distinguish them by certain displays and vocalizations, but neither shows up reliably until the birds are well into their second year. Yet in the aviary, distinct pairs form before one year, and paired birds show distinctive displays toward each other (Lorenz, 1940; Gwinner, 1964).

On February 8, at nearly one year of age, Lefty bowed, fluffed, fanned her tail, and did her first very clumsy rendition of the female-specific knocking display to Fuzz. That is how I knew she was a female. Did he? I needed to wonder, because I previously had one pair of ravens, two very large dominant brothers, who bonded and built a perfect nest, then fought viciously when one tried to mate with the other at egg-laying time, i.e., just when the nest was finished. From this I deduced that the condition of the nest, rather than the condition of the female, is likely the cue for mating.

The brother’s friendship survived despite numerous vicious fights at attempted matings, and despite availability of females. Lefty, in the next few days, repeated the display numerous times as if practicing or communicating to no one in particular, I never heard Houdi, the other, slightly smaller raven I suspected of being female, give this female-specific call until about a year later.

As I write, in June 1998, I have another group of six juveniles that are a year out of the nest. Of these six, a male, Blue has been paired with a female, Red, since last January, when they were only seven months out of the nest. (The birds are named for the color of the ring that marks them.) They perch next to each other regularly, preen each other, and feed together. Blue is the most dominant bird of the group. He and Red eventually fed amicably side by side, but he attacks all birds except Red. For all appearances, they are a couple, yet if they were in the wild they would be wandering juveniles, and they would not breed for two or more years.

We don’t know why young ravens socialize, but by doing so they enter a social web that could have relevance beyond information exchange about food. Socializing reduces aggression; to be familiar to the others at food is to be tolerated. In addition, in order to meet potential partners, the birds have to show themselves, getting exposure to others. Partnerships may lead to mating. In addition, being in a feeding aggregation could also be a large part of making social contacts, leading to alliances. If so, the birds must recognize individuals. It has often been assumed that some birds can do this, but we don’t know how. I hoped eventually to observe individual differences in my charges, to maybe get hints if and how they might do so themselves.

When Goliath and my other three young ravens were just weeks out of the nest, they followed me when I went for daily rambles in the woods. By the end of July that year, the four were showing signs of independence. I feared that, like other young ravens I had reared, they were nearly self-sufficient and would soon leave me. Since I wanted to study pairing (and more), I retained them in my aviary complex.

By the first fall, some pairings already started to develop. Commonly, one bird perched close to another and bent its head down to solicit preening. Such solicitations indicated who wanted attention from whom, and whether or not they received preening indicated who was interested in providing satisfaction. At first, every bird preened and was preened by every other one. The preening partners gradually became more specific, until they eventually became nearly exclusive. For example, Goliath formed a preening partnership with Lefty, and
Fuzz preened exclusively with Houdi, and vice versa. They were “going steady.” (I presume that it was only random chance that Goliath ended up with Lefty, his sibling.) Might these pairs also become nesting partners? To find out, I had to separate each pair into their own aviary.

In January 1995, I let Fuzz and Houdi remain in the complex in Vermont and took Goliath and Lefty to my aviary complex in Maine. The pair were housed for the most part in their own side aviary, separated from the main aviary that was then holding a crowd of wild-captured juveniles. On April 26, I let the pair into the main aviary with the crowd. Would Goliath be beaten up when entering their domain? Not at all! Goliath seemed eager to join them, then immediately attacked
all
the top males, especially G67, the most dominant one there. Within a day, G67 and all others yielded to Goliath. He chased them and did the macho display until all stopped fighting back. He had concentrated his attention on those who resisted. He seldom approached females, with the exception of one bird with a white feather on her left wing. He initially greeted her with the same macho display he used when approaching males. Being a female, she responded not with fighting, fleeing, or submissive gestures, but with her knocking display that says, “I’m a powerful female.” He then stepped aside. I could thus sometimes tell the sexes apart by behavior, and maybe that is how they do it as well.

Afterward, I tried to chase Goliath and Lefty back into their own private side aviary. They knew the door, because they had once been free to use the whole aviary, but they both seemed determined to stay in the big aviary. Goliath looked at me pointedly, then pecked branches angrily and erected his macho-pose ears. He had never reacted to me that way before, and I had always shooed him back easily. Lefty, who also refused to go back, found a hole in the wire and escaped the aviary. She sat above in a birch tree for a while, made some
kek-kek
calls, and flew off down the valley toward Alder Stream, While all this was going on, “Whitefeather” flew into Goliath’s aviary. Once there, she immediately made long, undulating, territorial calls I’d never heard from her before, and in
his
aviary the calls were especially surprising. Normally, these calls don’t attract other birds, but Goliath reacted instantly by flying to her, back into his aviary. I expected him
to attack the interloper. Instead, he sidled up to her as she gave a bowing, fuzzy head display and repeated a long series of the three repetitive knocking female-indicating calls. She meekly stepped away. He then did a little macho display, but without much bluster. Then all was calm. No fight. She later did long series of the quick repetitive knocks. I felt a match had been made, and closed the door to “their” aviary. There was no point in me trying to get Goliath and Lefty together again. Fate had decided otherwise, and I was curious to see what would happen next.

When Lefty came back from her visit to the wild ravens feeding at a calf carcass a mile away, she paid no attention at all to Goliath. She perched above that part of the aviary housing the strangers, totally ignoring the side aviary with Goliath and Whitefeather. So much for what I presumed had been a love match. If Goliath and Lefty previously had a relationship, it was clearly only one of convenience.

It was time for me to release all the wild birds other than Goliath and Whitefeather. I opened the door of the big complex, leaving a raccoon carcass as bait just outside the door. Some of the birds stepped out to feed, but they did not fly away. Instead, they returned to the aviary after their meal. In the evening, others tried repeatedly to get back inside, walking paths in the snow along the wire. It took two days before they stayed out.

Weeks later, Goliath, my tame, hand-reared bird, and Whitefeather, the wild raven, were still paired like a loving couple. They perched next to each other, preened each other, and cooed softly to each other. Lefty had departed for good. I wondered if the Goliath-Whitefeather pairing was also one of convenience and might easily be disrupted when an opportunity arose. There was only one way to find out: provide that opportunity. On July 22, I brought Goliath and Whitefeather to Vermont, to release them into the home aviary with the Fuzz and Houdi pair. I would there keep the four together for four months.

I released Goliath first. Hopping out of his crate into his home of months earlier, he seemed fully relaxed. He shook himself. Fuzz made the
rap-rap-rap
calls, on high alert. He had been subordinate to
Goliath before. In Goliath’s absence, he had not been challenged. Now he proceeded to make a macho display, sidling up to Goliath. Houdi stayed up out of the way in the sleeping shed, giving some knocking calls. Fuzz stood tall, bill-snapped, flashed the white nictitating membranes of his eyes, and strutted. Goliath did not respond. Fuzz then attacked, and Goliath assumed the “crouching pineapple” submissive display, which I had never seen him do before. The contest was over, just like that.

A raven pair, alert to a neighbor’s calls
.

Goliath, previously dominant over Fuzz, was now submissive to him. Established within the first few minutes of the encounter, this relationship was maintained from then on. Their tense social interaction deescalated in the next forty-five minutes, but the result was clear. Houdi had stayed totally out of the strictly male-male encounter. Then I released Whitefeather. Would she be challenged and beaten by the resident female, just as Goliath has been beaten by the resident male? That’s what I would have bet, especially since Whitefeather, a wild bird, would now be in a strange new place without the home court advantage.

As Whitefeather flew out of her crate onto a perch, Goliath flew to her and macho displayed. She started knocking. Very soon they had bill-to-bill contact and briefly preened each other. Fuzz made a new ringing-rasping call I had never heard him give before. It was long and oft-repeated. Houdi, hearing Whitefeather’s knocking, responded for her own part with paroxysms of knocking. Neither female engaged in body contact like the males. For about ten minutes, both females knocked almost continuously, then their vocal duel tapered off. Whitefeather had the last word, and Houdi became quiet.

After that day, Goliath continued to be subservient to Fuzz, and Houdi, in turn, always yielded to Whitefeather. Houdi, who before had routinely engaged in knocking displays every day, no longer knocked at all. Not once. Indeed, the noisy Whitefeather seemed to inhibit all of her vocalizations. In turn, the previously vociferous Goliath became totally silent as well, and he always yielded physically to the now-expressive Fuzz whenever there was food.

Although the dominance had been reversed, the pairing or preening bonds had not. The females continued to preen only their males. Whitefeather, the dominant female, stayed with Goliath, her now subordinate male. Similarly, Fuzz, the most dominant male, remained true in his preening to Houdi, the now-silent subordinate female. Each day, the members of the respective pairs sat long hours side by side with each other.

Curiously, Goliath, who until then had been the only one to greet me routinely by doing the crouching, tail-quivering, entreating display, no longer gave me this display. Conversely, Fuzz now greeted me with the standard male macho display used to impress potential mates and male rivals.

The dominance hierarchy amongst the birds was most readily seen at contested resources, principally perches, food, and the bathing bowl. When it was time for a bath (in the large wheelbarrow), the most dominant bathed first and the most subordinate last. But there were constant attempts at line-crashing, which were met with much shoving.