More Raven Mysteries

My hat off and a “Thanks” to the folks at curiousexpeditions.org for a great post on Ravens. It is a wide ranging post covering ravens in natural history to ravens as inspiration and presence in literature. Given that, strangely enough, one of the common search ways that folks stumble into the Wild Resiliency blog is through a Google search for ravens, it seems only appropriate to pass back a link and so share a resource for the Raven lovers among us.
My most recent Raven story occurred the other day when I drove by a local school yard and noticed a circle of perhaps ten ravens gathered around a couple of the large black birds in the middle of the group. Strange thing was that I felt transported back to my own childhood school days. One of these two central birds was standing over the other, the second bird lying upside down on its back with its legs stretched up into the air….
Reminded me of one dog going submissive on another… and as already mentioned, of an all too human school yard brawl scene.

Ravens are smart. Common ravens have among the largest brains of any bird species and they have been shown to fashion tools of leaves to use them to extract grubs as well as solve complex puzzles. Young ravens are exceedingly playful and have been observed sliding down snowbanks, feet akimbo, squawking in delight. They even play games and seemingly tease other species, such as boldly playing catch-me-if-you-can with wolves and dogs…and then there’s the talking.

So smart, in fact, is the Covus Corax, that a single bird, a raven named Grip, is responsible for two, count them two, contributions to the cannon of classic literature. Not even Lassie can compete with that. (curiousexpeditions.org)

I wonder what inspirations and strategies for thrivability this black bird of mythology might teach us? Oh, and here are couple of links relating to ravens on the wildresiliencyblog.

Intelligence in Nature: Clever Ravens

Intelligence in Nature: Clever Ravens Followup

More coming soon on the Intelligence in Nature theme here.