Walking through Hollywood on Yom Kippur in search of ravens can’t help but remind one of the appearances of ravens in the books of the law and the prophets as carried through history by the Jewish people. As I was walking west to La Cienaga and Holloway to see if that really is a full-time raven hang out (it is), all sorts of people were streaming into the Director’s Guild and were lined up outside the Laugh Factory, where, among many other locations, the High Holy Days would be celebrated.
7:30 a.m.: under a bright blue morning sky on an already warm day, a raven lighted for a while on the usual billboard (see previous posts).
8:40 a.m. : raven returns. Even from 30 m. away, I could hear it making a soft, high-pitched ‘oo-’oo vocalization like the one I’d heard before from ravens in the same location.
10:15 a.m.: after walking from LaBrea to Fairfax with the Santa Monicas to my right and vast tracts of empty sky above, I was almost to the Griddle when I spied a raven gliding south east out of the mountains. As usual with a glide, it kept to the same line without a single flap of wing until it had passed over and out of sight. I had to run around the corner to keep it in sight, but even then it disappeared in the direction of Darbyville. At the same time, however, three ravens were then visible (I was south of Fairfax, with the Director’s Guild looming just to my west), flying quickly north. I ran back to Sunset to try to catch them with the camera, but they were moving too fast and I was having trouble with manual vs. auto focus. A short while later, I could see several ravens at the peak of a hill just east of Laurel Canyon, mobbing a pair of hawks.
11:00 a.m. LaCienega and Holloway: hawks all over Hollywood. Snapped one on the top of a pine on LaCienega. Just after it flew off, I spotted a raven flying over LaCienaga-Santa Monica Blvd. - Holloway, just as I’d hoped. As I was watching, and moving closer down the hill to the intersection, I realized the chase was on - raven vs. hawk, and then two, then three ravens escorting the hawk westwards. While ravens mob, they don’t really dive-bomb like smaller birds and crows do, but look as if they are merely seeing the slightly larger bird off. I got as many shots as I could, so this should soon be a well-illustrated post.
