More on Mabel August 02 2019, 0 Comments
Mabel and I go back a long way. When I first met her, she and George were a couple, and they visited my garden several times a day … for years. I wrote about them a lot in earlier blogs: their love story, their very tough year, the time that George was missing and, finally …
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Watching the ravens: amazing. Meeting the Ravenmaster: fabulous. Watching the ravens and tourists interact: priceless. We were a bit jet lagged for our Tower trip (first morning in the UK) and I was still trying to figure out how to use my new, tiny, and infinitely complicated, travel camera. But with only two days in …
Continue reading Raven Watching at the Tower of London
Some of us always read the manual. Others do not (except in the direst emergency.) It would seem that our little Anna’s Hummingbird falls into the latter category. From everything I’ve ready about these tiny little birds, they meet most of their liquid needs from sipping nectar — from feeders or flowers. I have a …
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Well, I’m not sure if they did it by guile, by force, or by consulting the Office of the Housing Ombirdsman, but somehow the Northern Flickers have regained occupancy of their nest. As you may recall, it wasn’t looking good for them in the last post, Battle of the Nest. The Starlings had moved right …
Continue reading Conflict Resolution
As I look forward to watching the currently taping first episode of the last season of Game of Thrones, I’m also addicted to following the real life epic drama going on right outside my window … Game … Of … Nests! It’s a tense, political and, at times, violent tale. Marvin and Mavis have been …
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Raven Games March 14 2019, 0 Comments
I was worried that I wasn’t going to get well soon enough to go up on the mountains again this winter. Luckily, it’s been snowing like crazy up there (as well as in the city!) and I finally started to feel better earlier this week. Yesterday we headed up to Mount Seymour for a short …
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Crows make it look as if they have the world by the tail. When the dark river of them flies over to the nightly roost, they look powerful and untouchable. In her poem, Crows, Mary Oliver describes this view of them: glossy and rowdy and indistinguishable. The deep muscle of the world. But that anonymous …
Continue reading Marvin and Mavis: A Love Story
Crowflix February 03 2019, 0 Comments
Sometimes the best way to tear yourself away from binge-watching the TV is to drag yourself outside and tune in to the always entertaining Crow Channel. I’d planned an archival Ken Burns-style documentary for this blog post, going over everything that’s happened with the local crows since I last did an update last fall. After …
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I thought I was actually going to be documenting the sudden and violent demise of Marvin this past Sunday. I was at Make-It! Market for most of last week, but I took an hour or so off on Sunday morning to mail some online orders. On the way back from the post office, walking down …
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1. Crows Are a Gateway Bird Crows are often the only obvious representative of the natural world that a busy urbanite might see in a day. Many more wild things live among us, of course — but crows are so “in your face” that they’re hard to overlook, no matter how distracted you are. Once …
Continue reading 6 Reasons Why Crows Make Great Therapists
Crow Therapy November 25 2018, 0 Comments
It’s been a busy week, starting on Monday when I was interviewed by Gloria Macarenko on the CBC Radio One’s show — On The Coast. You can listen to the interview here. The subject of our chat was my City Crow calendar in particular, and “crow therapy” in general. I must admit that when I first …
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I’ve been meaning to write this post for months … possibly years. I’m often asked about my photography — what kind of equipment I use, lighting and so on — so I naturally I thought I’d blog about it. Starting a new post is a bit like deciding the angle from which you will dive …
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In our local Crowlandia we’re ricocheting between serenity and stress. Suspense is the name of the game as eggs and hatchlings start to fill the nests. Most days it’s seems really very peaceful. The crows maintain an uncharacteristic hush behind leafy screens, quietly guarding their nests. In April, it was possible to see a pair …
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Special Days April 25 2018, 0 Comments
Some days there are ravens. Some days, there are even mountain bluebirds. When such things miraculously appear in my own urban neighbourhood I tend to (if at all possible) just drop everything and follow them. I’ve been ridiculously lucky for the past two weekends. It was the raven the weekend before last. She hung around …
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In contrast to the rather peaceful imagery of Crow Calligraphy, where corvid nesting behaviour evoked the peaceful strokes of Japanese brush painting — this post is more Sam Peckinpah meets Hieronymus Bosch. I usually don’t like the term “murder” to describe a group of crows. Rather prejudicial, I always think. In the case of this gathering, …
Continue reading Crow Murder (Attempted)
Raven Tutor March 30 2018, 0 Comments
Well, obviously the ravens of East Vancouver did not think much of my raven language skills! The very morning I published Learning to Speak Raven, they sent a tutor to teach me some new phrases. I could hear the crows fussing and a raven making some sounds I’d never heard before as soon as I …
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How I’d love to stumble across and old English/Raven dictionary in a thrift shop. Or be able to take a Conversational Raven online course. My husband is currently refreshing his Spanish skills using such an app. I can imagine him repeating Spanish phrases in one corner of the house, and me practicing my “knocking call” in …
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“Slightly Ransacked” might be the best way to describe the look of our house. Some people call it “charming” or “eclectic,” but I know they’re only being kind. Clearly, I am quite unqualified to offer serious home décor tips. With that in mind, please consider the following post to be, not so much a design …
Continue reading Home Décor For Nature Lovers
Snow Birds February 25 2018, 0 Comments
Already it seems as if we might just have dreamed it. Once upon a time, one Saturday morning in February, we woke up in a crystal palace. A thick and flawless blanket of snow had fallen silently through the Vancouver night. The sun had come out. Everything looked like a fairy tale. The landscape itself …
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Crow roost visiting as therapy — I’m not sure it will catch on as a mainstream practice, but it works for me. The first time I went to the Still Creek crow roost was about ten years ago. I’d recently received some bad news and, having moped about for a few days, felt the need …
Continue reading Last Call at Still Creek
You see a loud, smart, black bird, hanging around with his gang of mates, giving you fearless looks, and constantly rummaging through the garbage (or your picnic) for a snack. Must be a crow, right? Or at least a corvid relation? But no, the grackle isn’t even distantly related to the crow. It’s a member …
Continue reading Consider the Grackle …
Crow Gossip November 10 2017, 0 Comments
Just in case you tire of human news, here’s a “celebrity profile” of a different sort. I’m not sure “who” this up-and-coming power couple are wearing this fall. Their lives seem to be pretty scandal-free, although you’d have to listen to the roost rumours to be sure of that. Politically, I’d say they’re pretty apathetic …
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Sometimes, on my walks, I like to play a little game. I call it Alleyway to Art Gallery. Something catches my eye — a piece of rust, moss on a worn fence, a shattered windshield, even some crumpled paper floating in the gutter. At that moment, in that light, it is astonishing. That’s how the …
Continue reading Collecting Hidden Beauty
It’s taken me a ridiculous length of time to get to this simple little blog . I’m just trying to update you on the WHO, WHAT and WHERE of the local crow families. But it’s complicated! I tried writing it all in words and it was confusing even me, so I decided we needed a …
Continue reading A Puzzlement of Crows
