Raven

Several years ago a large Raven electrocuted itself on a power pole next to my office window. I managed to pick it out of the snow bank at the bottom of the pole, froze it and started to process of having it mounted.

The Yukon Raven is a protected species and it was almost two years before the bird found it’s way back to me. The process of lab testing, permitting, ownership and mounting is a lengthy one but well worth it. The bird, as yet unnamed, now sits on a branch above my desk, wings slightly spread with a permanent saucy look in its eyes and a half open beak as if talking a blue streak and it greatly reminds me of Poe’s raven “Nevermore”.

The Raven is my favorite bird and has a lot of other fans in the Yukon. It was voted in as the territorial bird some years ago. Its vocabulary varies from a croaking cr-r-ruck or prruk to a metallic tok that if repeated, likens to the drip of a water faucet. In the summer, our resident raven will circle the house intermittently cawing and screaming for five minutes or more. Not long afterwards there is a meeting held on the beach in front of the house with as many as a dozen of the birds attending. This obviously means that the birds within hearing distance understood what the screaming was all about and are busy discussing it between themselves.

It is a bird that I can very easily get mad at when I get up in the morning and find that every bag in the back of my truck destined for the city dump has been opened and spread all over the yard.

The ravens breed in early spring. The large nest is built up on a rocky cliff or clay bank inaccessible to anyone but a flying predator. The offspring number between four and seven and the parents like to feed the youngsters on fresh bird eggs. The early birth of the kids is well timed as most other birds start the nesting and egg laying after the raven’s brood has hatched.

The first impression is that of an awkward flyer and it seemingly beats its noisy way across the sky. This notion quickly dissipates as you watch the aerial acrobatics as it rides the thermals along the cliff sides. The in-flight show is also part of the courtship process and is therefore very spectacular at mating time.

The Raven has a varied presence in mythology. Odin the Norse war God is said to have relied on his two ravens Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) to fly around the world on a daily basis to keep him informed of the happenings around the globe.

It is said that the bird was the first bird out of Noah’s ark but did not return. It apparently found an adequate supply of food and didn’t feel too concerned about the rest of the arks crew.

In most North American native mythology the Raven appears as a trickster God. In certain stories he is the Creator and appears as ‘He who brought light to the world by stealing the sun’. He is an avid feeder and scrounger and many of the stories concern his trickery in filling his own food wants.

Obviously the Raven has been around for a long time and is here to stay. I am glad because I enjoy its company at the lake and on an outing in the bush. I pay attention to the tone and nature of his voice as a warning of things and happenings in the immediate area. I can also sit and take great pleasure in watching the display of aerial acrobatics it puts on against the many clay banks that border the river valleys.

I am told that in captivity one raven lived for 69 years. Just think of the tales our local black bandit could tell us. Perhaps there is even time to train him to leave the back of my pickup alone.