Tag: Ravens

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The Raven Gang

We have a pair of adult ravens living on the croft, Floki and Helga, after whom the house was named.

We hear them mostly in the spring as they call to each other, and occasionally see them wheeling overhead across a windy sky, but they’re generally private birds, watching us curiously from the big Douglas Fir on the western boundary.

They’re no trouble, and fascinating birds to live alongside.

Unlike the Raven juveniles.

Before we moved here I had no idea that young ravens live together in a huge group before they pair off, mate for life and settle down to adult Raven respectability. The juveniles form what can only be described as a gang of teenagers, noisy, boisterous, and badly behaved. It’s often called a Conspiracy of Ravens.

We have a large Conspiracy that lives locally. Recent exploits have been starting at dawn – which is just after 4am in these parts – with loud squabbling, and shrieking so loud that it’s impossible to sleep through.

They’re very smart.

They’ve been working out how to get to the fat balls that are put out in a wire cage contraption for the smaller birds. Clearly it’s a breakfast treat that can’t be resisted, and an hour or so of noisy plundering takes place with a dozen or more of them fighting each other for the spoils.

On blustery days at sea we occasionally get seagulls venturing inland across the croft, and on these days we can hear turf wars sparking off between the ravens and the gulls in a cacophony of noise.

The battlefield is usually the caravan roof, where shrieking, scrabbling and cawing take place until supremacy is established.

And all before 5am..

The joys of living hand in glove with wildlife!

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The gang

As spring has progressed, the bird life on the croft has become much more visible.

As I write I can hear or see blackbird, robin, linnet, chaffinch, swift, cuckoo, wheatear, sparrow and meadow pipit. And of course our ravens, whom we think have mated. We’ve named them Floki and Helga after two characters in the Vikings series.

Ravens are generally solitary birds, mating for life and hunting and living with their partner.

The juveniles, however, live in gangs until they eventually mate and pair off. And like most teenagers in large groups they’re loud, posturing, awkward, and a bit thuggish…

We have a gang of young ravens that visit the croft daily. They’re not interested in the seed or peanut feeders that we put out for the birds, but they love the fat balls..

The fat balls are in a metal mesh container with a lid on them, hung onto the wire stock fence that surrounds the croft. They’ve learned to peck at them until they break up enough to fall through the mesh, and then they swoop on them and scarf them down as quickly as they can, squabbling over especially tasty morsels.

One particular individual – husband calls him Dare Boy – is always the first to hop up and start the offensive. And once it starts, it’s fast. We’ve gone from five fat balls to zero in a matter of minutes. It’s like watching a gang of starved fifteen year olds with a pizza.

They can’t reach the very lowest fat ball in the container, but that’s no problem. They simply nip through the string that holds the container so that the whole thing lands on the grass and they can eat to their hearts content.

It’s become a daily amusement for us to watch one of them fly over, check out the food situation, return with the gang and casually line up on the croft fence ready for the off.

Who needs a television? 😊

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The Pair of Ravens

I’ve mentioned before that we have two Ravens on the croft. Ravens are solitary birds, but they are said to pair-bond and mate for life.

*photo credit the Raven Master, Tower of London

As mating season approached this Spring, we noticed the morning calls from the old pine tree start to change.

In addition to the rough croaking song of the male raven each morning, there’s a more softly pitched, warbling call that comes a few seconds afterwards in response from the female. This is repeated many times over the course of the day. We think that they have nested somewhere in the large trees on the western boundary.

We often see the two birds flying over the croft together throughout the day, hovering and wheeling through the skies before disappearing over the hills to the north of us. They are skillful flyers.

I personally think it’s fabulous to have such birds on the croft, but many of the crofter locals think otherwise. I’ve had darkly muttered comments about Ravens taking newborn lambs, and whether or not this is true, or how infrequently it happens, there’s no allowance given for the fact that even Ravens have to eat, and that this is sadly Nature’s way.

I appreciate that there has to be a balance. But to demonise an intelligent bird that is doing no more than trying to survive can’t be the way.

We’ll continue to enjoy our Ravens.

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House build progress

It’s been a while since I shared anything on the housebuild itself, so I thought with the onset of the new year that it was time.

There’s been only slow progress on the house over the last few months, due to a number of factors like the move, setting up the caravan, problems with the caravan, supply delays, and to be honest, things that we have discovered need remedying before we can go further with the build.

Whilst we’re in dialogue with the builders to check a number of things, husband has been able to work on improving the air tightness of the construction by sealing every gap and then foil taping all the wall seams to ensure that we can be as draught-free as possible.

That work is slow and painstaking, especially in the 6m high gable end of the house, necessitating internal scaffolding, and has taken a number of weeks. It’s only now that we’re nearly ready to start applying insulating foil to the walls.

We had originally hoped to be ready for underfloor heating and screed by now, so we’re running about a month behind our original estimates, but to be honest with the new Covid lockdown restrictions and Brexit, I’m just happy to be able to be able to make any progress at all.

I’m sure that there will be many more delays to hit us yet. Never was there such a bad time to work on a house build from a building supplies perspective! 🤔

We’re not despondent, though. It can’t be helped and we will do as much as we can within the constraints that we face.

In the meantime, we continue to be awed by the sheer beauty of the landscape around us, and are serenaded by our raven from the old Scots pine as dawn breaks every morning, complaining that it’s time our sorry asses were out of bed.

It really couldn’t be much better.

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Storm Crows and the Raven

I’m sitting in the static watching the rain and wind bluster across the Sound.

It’s a wild one out there today and I’m happy to be wrapped up indoors and sheltered. Husband is busy installing the boiler (how excited am I for hot water one day soon that I don’t have to boil on the stove!) and the spaniel has assumed his prone position by the fire. It’s not a day to be working outdoors.

In the field looking east across the hillside there are a large number of crows, all wheeling and soaring together, an impressive sight. There must be at least thirty or forty of them, collectively called, I believe, a murder of crows. I’m convinced that they’re playing in the wind.

Occasionally one will take off and hover in almost motionless balance, trying to hold its own against the force of the wind before tipping its wings and allowing itself to be blown backwards and upwards across the hill. The others then do the same in sequence, like dancers in a ballet . It’s definitely a social activity of some sort!

We also have a raven. We may have more than one, as they’re often in pairs, but we definitely have at least one.

I heard it calling yesterday morning, a gutteral, deep sound quite unlike the crows. I’m so pleased to hear that it’s still here. We named the house Raven House because we spotted a couple of them overhead when we first visited the croft.

Such enigmatic, intelligent birds. They seem very at home here on these rainswept hillsides.

And according to legend, where I discovered that they are the symbol on the MacDonald Battle Flag, whose lands we are on, they’ve been here since time immemorial.

I like that.