Now I was raised with parents that truly dislike crows and ravens, and when I say dislike, I am being kind in how I state that.. to this very day, they are both very much anti-crow, my mother always says how much it bothers her that they will pick on the little song birds, and will steal eggs and kill and eat little ones.

I on the other hand have always felt drawn to ravens and to an extend their cousins the crows, we have a mated pair of crows that claim our farm as their own, and they have been the same pair now for close to five years, they in some ways feel like old friends, while their offspring come and go, some staying for an extra year or sometimes seeming to come back for a visit..  If you watch them, they will tell me how things are on the farm, they are in many ways a better alarm then the hounds.

The funniest story I have on my farm crows is that I think my purrpots seem to know who belongs and who does not, last winter I watched my regular pair plus one of their young but adult offspring comes into the yard to help themselves to some bits of seeds that had been spilled on the ground, and they came with a new mated pair of older ravens, and seemed almost to be hosting them, I was watching from the living room window as they appeared to show them where to land, where to go for the feed and appeared to be leading by example that all was well, and it was until the moment that the new pair came down to land and quick as you can say -Ack!, one of my farm purrpots who had not moved a muscle and who I had not even seen in hiding when the regular pair came in, did a flying leap after one of the new ones, and it appeared to be a either a slight hit or a very near miss, while they took of screaming, the regular pair appeared to scold the cat.. I wish I could have a critter translator to have seen the thoughts everyone involved had..

But my real love is ravens, I adore older smart ravens, and I do miss them something fierce now that we live in crow country, while I enjoyed the ravens in NWT, it was in Iqaluit that I formed a special bond with a wild old boy, I called Kurplunk, he was huge!, and he loved the sound of rock falling and then hitting water, and clearly had played that game till he could so the sounds perfectly.

I heard the sound before I figured out which raven did it, and then I figured out who and rewarded him with a treat for giving me sure a giggle, and that started our “friendship” he learned and did “tricks” and got treats back for it, he was outside and as wild as can be but he got to the point that he would come to the second floor bedroom window and knock to get my attention.

I rarely feed him or his mates (of which he had two in the time I was up there) during spring/summer or fall but he knew that come winter, and for sure when the storms or the worst of the winds came that he could find a high value feed to be had from me, either dog food or cat food with a bit of fresh table scraps, perhaps some black sunflower seeds or peanut butter balls with bird seed in them..

I certainly didn’t want him used to only eating from me, but on the other hand, I did like to know that when the tough got going, he could get a little extra into his tummy, he always shared with his mate and any offspring he had with him but he was a top bird in the area.. truly I have no idea his age but he was without a doubt one of the biggest ravens I have ever seen to date.

Do which side of the fence do you fall on, like or dislike? Cringe that they are in fact a member of the higher food chain or admire them for being as clever and smart as they can be.. consider them dirty or consider them to invaluable part of the ecosystem?