Ever since I began this project, one thing has been missing: a photo of ravens cavorting around our most famous landmark (see November 4). Although I’ve got the bare minimum of equipment, my observations so far have shored up my belief that if I loiter in the right spot long enough, not only will one of the birds pass between me and the sign, it will do so at the crucially close distance required to get a usable photo. People keep telling me just “to photoshop it” but where’s the fun in that?
With the day off, it seemed like a good time to reconoitre location. I’m already satisfied that no more than four hours in Runyon on the flat but high place I call “The Table” would get me the photo, or the same time or less on the ridge that extends westward from Captain’s Roost in Griffith Park. But there is one place even closer to the sign, and that’s the Hollywood reservoir a.k.a. Lake Hollywood. In the 1920s it was one of Mulholland’s big water projects. A dam in the canyons below Mt. Cahuenga holds back untold cubic feet of water, and the lake is only visible from above. A few lucky people live on the ridges overlooking the lake and its surrounding mantle of tall pines and other trees. Part of Griffith Park is adjacent, and the bulk of GP is nearby, as is the undeveloped portion of Mt. Cahuenga, and on top of that the lake itself is fenced off against human access. So it’s almost a kind of nature preserve. It is possible sometimes to see deer on the hillsides. It looks like a paradise for a happy raven couple. Due to recent heavy rains and damage to some hillsides, the road that runs all the way around the lake has been closed (it is always closed to cars). So I won’t be able to check for nests anytime soon.
There is a fine overlook, if you can find it, not so hard once you know the area. A lot of the area around the Hollywood sign is inhabited (the sign was just an advertisement for one of Los Angeles’s innumberable real estate developments). I drove up to the end of one neighborhood, to the sliver of Griffith Park that overlooks the lake, hoping to judge how often photo ops might happen. Even before I got out of the car, I had found two ravens perched on a street light. The had a great view of the lake, and behind them rose Mt. Lee with the Hollywood sign. Of course I hadn’t brought the camera. I parked the car and walked back up to the birds. They were simply sitting quietly in the late morning sun. I took care not to stand and stare at them, and they didn’t give any indications that I was alarming to them. So we all sat for a while, until a large hawk soared into view over a nearby mansion. It wasn’t long before both birds took to the air, soaring with the hawk southwards along the lake, escorting it away with a duet of quorks. I noticed that one raven seemed to take the lead in approaching the hawk, eventually drawing very close and making pretty aggressive moves for a raven. Hawks don’t adjust their activity much for any birds, and I suppose this mainly serves to push raptors certain directions. The ravens I’d observed off the Sunset Strip seemed much more engergetic in their mobbing, with all three black birds drawing very near the hawk and keeping up the pressure. Here at the lake, it was much more low key.
Since I had the hydration backpack in the car (I keep it and bottled water there ever since Katrina) it seemed like a good time to continue to reconoitre. Had I just got lucky or is GP such a raven haven that taking the photo I want will be easy? [Two later visits indicate I had just got lucky - ravens prefer the ridges up and down Mt. Lee, but don’t appear to be frequenting the photo-op spot. I need to visit there earlier, I think).