Spent a couple hours in GP this afternoon. Ravens all over the place from the get-go. While I was climbing up Mt. Hollywood, they were mobbing a hawk over Captain’s Roost. Once up on the summits, it seemed mostly to be a matter of pairs coming and going, with one seemingly predominating - the ones I think of as “living” on Mt. Hollywood Drive. There was a full-blown TV or movie shoot on the Drive, so maybe they were spending more time at the top, but possibly the mild winds and good soaring weather was drawing them out. I watched a good bit of scliding, as the birds moved between Mt. Bell and Mt. Hollywood and back.
There was a lot going on in the park - buzzards, hawks, falcons, all the usual small birds, parties on horseback, a coyote in the thicket below the summit (must live there, I always see it now), and even the beast with two backs in the interior of Captain’s Roost.
From the summit, I watched one raven glide for a couple miles (seems like it anyway) in the direction of Chinatown. On the way down, a convention of ravens above the switchbacks below Captain’s Roost, and another pair (or the same one?) scliding on the south ridges.
Since I have a map of the park available, I am planning to sketch all this out and put it online, as it can hardly make sense to anyone but park habituees and rangers. Why and when the birds come and go is all very mysterious. The impression builds that there are some territories, but also some communal activities like mobbing, and possibly just the sociability that BH has noted among some dominant pairs. I really don’t think I’ve seen any chasing going on.
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Interestingly, I realized yesterday, quite late, that GP seems to be a no-go zone for crows, but I’ll have to look into it. I have been so busy watching ravens, I hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t noticed any crows - whereas the two share space on the boulevards of broken dreams that are Hollywood.