Ravens in Hollywood

Posted by ravens at July 29th, 2009

Juvenile raven demonstrating juvenile raven behavior to bemused motorcyclist at a rest stop. Wonderful vocalizations and neophile exploration of everything in sight.

Posted by ravens at July 3rd, 2009

This is one of my local ravens – seen day-long in the vicinty of Billy Wilder Square and the pines of Lanewood Ave. – being very vocal at 8:30 a.m. I have no clue what was going on; mostly from a perch in one of the pines, but also with a couple fly-overs to the same spot on a nearby building. Raven mysteries. Sounds almost like a chimp at times. I think it may have grabbed a piece of food from the tree before flying off to Sunset Blvd, but I’m not certain.Was there more food it wanted? Was it having trouble caching? Was it trying to call its partner? RavenLanewood

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Posted by ravens at June 11th, 2009

Billy Wilder Square ravens perched on Coors Light billboard above motel, grooming each other, preening and looking largely content.

Posted by ravens at February 15th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1DO89RZrP0

Raven visits his neighbors the Catalina bald eagles

Posted by ravens at October 25th, 2008

Fine day in the GP, with some 4-5 dozen ravens congregating above Mt. Toypurina and along the Hogback Trail, and, in smaller groups and pairs, making tours around Mt. Hollywood. One pair on the branch of a tall pine next to the nesting site by the tunnel, maybe the owners of the territory, sharing a quiet afternoon and bonding or maintaining their bond.

Posted by ravens at February 20th, 2007

http://www.quixo.com/los_angeles_crows.htm

Crows love L.A. too. Nice interview with local ornithologist.

Where do ravens fit in? It occurred to me just now that before all the modern people showed up. C. brachyrynchos would not have been nearly as numerous in the region, and that ravens would have soared over the hills and valleys much as they still do, but without all their smaller cousins getting in the way, and probably not in quite so large numbers as today. But there is plenty of foraging for everyone.

Posted by ravens at December 6th, 2006

At dawn today in Hollywood I heard a familiar voice outside, reminding me to blog the story of what I saw in the Del Rey Hills yesterday, mid-afternoon. The Del Rey hills are the bluffs that rise above the Ballona Wetlands in west L.A., south of Marina del Rey. They have been continuously inhabited for thousands of years, but never so densely as now. They are also home to a pair of ravens – possibly the ones whose nest still sits on the side of the Airport Marina hotel, or whose nest is the one on the Pepperdine building on Sepulveda that was destroyed last week by window cleaners.

Hawks and ravens were sacred beings to the people who lived on the Del Rey Hills before the Europeans came to change things. In spite of the drastic and destructive change that they brought, the ravens and hawks still fly above the bluffs. So do hordes of crows. Lincoln Blvd., the main northbound artery to Venice and Santa Monica, runs down the bluff past Loyola Marymount University and on to the wetlands and the mercenary real estate development known as Playa del Rey (it is so mercenary that it destroyed and desecrated native remains in order to build a baseball diamond on top of a key archaeological site, a fitting monument to five centuries of genocide).

At the entrance to the university, above the wetlands, several fan palms stand as decorative elements. Yesterday at 2:30 or so, on a clear, sunny day, dry and breezy, a single red-tailed hawk had perched on one of the broad fans. I’d never have notice except that the air above the palm was filled with a circus of two dozen or so crows intent on dislodging the raptor. They might as well have been tiny gnats. The hawk was quietly ignoring them. But as I drew close I noticed that two of the crows were awfully large…

The two local ravens had joined in the mob, and seemed to be having a go at the hawk, except that the crows would dive at the ravens as well. I pulled into the LMU driveway to watch. The ravens broke away to fly tandem along and above the top of LMU’s University Hall (a long, large building built into the bluff to maintain the shape of the land). A crow or two pursued them to little effect as the ravens engaged in fine displays of the aerial manoevres that keep them safe from their foes, flipping in mid-flight to meet a diving bird with beak and talon. Then they flew back into the mob, which was slowly dispersing, having failed to disturb the hawk in any way. One moment a crow would swoop on a raven, the next moment a raven would be chasing a crow. The demeanor of the ravens the whole time seemed calm and nonchalant, as though the crow circus were just a divertissement. Finally the last crows and the two ravens disappeared over the bluff to the west. The hawk remained on its fan palm leaf, calmly observing the wetlands below, as though wholly unconcerned that vast tracts of its remaining habitat had been turned into housing during its own lifetime.

But in spite of the development still underway in the Los Angeles basin, the bird news is not all bad. A condor was seen in Topanga Canyon this year. Gnatcatchers have returned to Palos Verdes, and it may not be long before Bald Eagles are seen once again in the skies above the City of Angels.

Posted by ravens at November 13th, 2006

I was almost at work, waiting for the light to change outside the gate to my university, when a crow chased a raven across the intersection at 8-10m above ground. Chased it right up Lincoln Blvd, but the last glimpse I got, the raven had got the upper hand of the dogfight.

Yesterday I watched one raven chase another over Sunset and LaBrea at about 45m altitude. Another raven was soarcling nearby. I’ve not seen any aggressive behaviors since last fall, so I don’t wonder if there is something about the run-up to breeding season that is bringing about more competition and aggressiveness.

Posted by ravens at September 16th, 2006

It’s not often I spend a whole day at home here in Billy Wilder Square. With the exception of the early morning, there have been ravens in the vicinity the whole day. There has been one vocalizing loudly nearby for the past half-hour, which strikes me as unusual, unless it actually roosts nearby. The sun is setting, and ravens should be home at this time. It has been delightful to have ravens around so frequently. The other thing I’ve remarked on lately is that although there are plenty of both crows and ravens around at the same time, the crows don’t seem terribly interested in mobbing their cousins. Maybe that only tends to occur in the breeding season.

Posted by ravens at December 10th, 2005

In Baker, California, the ravens occupy the place of pigeons in the local, anthropogenetic ecosystem, while long-tailed grackles play the role of crow. This online slideshow from Baker gives the impression that the raven is only part of the wilderness that surrounds the town, which also claims the title, “Gateway to Death Valley.”

This observer was transported instantly to nirvana – ravens everywhere, unafraid of novelty, ready to pounce on the nearest unattended Cheetoh. Fortunately, the Bun Boy restaurant also has a motel attached, so further research is only a Greyhound ticket away