What I love

I have not mentioned the crow-beings much of late - but they are all fine and still getting fed.

I saw the Playgrounds for the first time in ages - I'd just fed the Flyings who were friendlier than normal - and went over to the Playgrounds. They ran up quite close.

As I walked back across the park, I saw that Divo had walked well out of his usual area and he came right up to me. About 8 feet away. I said, "Come on!" and walked past him at that distance and he ran along next to me for a while - until I bent down to put out the food.

The Divines face a battle with the gulls. If they keep one crow at the bonanza, they're ok, but they tend to want to fly off to cache and then a whole flock of gulls zooms in. The babies are wary of chasing them off, but Divo and Diva have no such qualms.

Here is a tediously long video of feeding.

I know. Enough to cure insomnia. Though I only stopped because a woman came along with three dogs.

Diva always calls to try to gather all three fledglings. This photo shows her in the background and two of the young, but I think the third came later. White Wing is still with them.

You can see that she is still much bigger than they are.

That makes me think... I am sure CD was not smaller than Droopy and Three... but then I did meet CD in later summer, so these guys may be the size of the adults by then.

I am listening to Bernd Heinrich's The Mind of the Raven. Oh I love it! And I love how much he loves ravens! He raised some and did a lot of experiments involving wild birds, without harming them. In the book, he also tells stories of other hand reared ravens. It is truly wonderful.

When he talks of the courtship or friendship behaviour of female ravens, I can hear many similarities to how CD behaved with me and I miss her more.

As for ravens, they are so smart and so emotional. So social. So many different calls to communicate different experiences. It is truly fascinating. I really want to be able to spend time raven watching. Though it does sound like a rather chilly pursuit.

He has no doubts about animal consciousness. I mean. Who can?? Actually, people seem to consider us as the omega and everything else MAYBE on a scale below. Because we are so effective. I would ask: what is so great about a creature who seeks to dominate everything else for its own ends? Were it an individual, we would say he was a psychopath. People accept that animals may feel - but not really that they can know or think. Because we know and think with language, we assume that is the only way to know or think. Heinrich offers evidence that a raven can both know and think.

Heinrich also loves trees.

Shared loves.

Who knows, maybe the corvids and the trees can love us back?