Posted by ravens at October 26th, 2005
Overcast and threatening rain.
Picnic area by Greek Theater. Pair of foraging ravens. One was in a dumpster making off with discarded garlic bread. The two birds then flew back to the picnic area. One remained on the tip of a dead tree while the other flew down the street. After a few minutes it returned to collect its companion. This is the second time I’ve noted one bird fly to and around a waiting companion, who joins and follows. The pair then flew up and over the hill that forms the southern boundary of the park at this point, lined with homes along its ridge.
Below Dante’s View, the ridge stretches to the south east in a long, slow descent. Vista del Valle Drive, the closed, paved road that circumscribes the park mostly mid-way between the flats and the peaks, runs below this ridge, in and out of the canyons, offering a view to the north east. I had just started walking up this side of the park, under mostly cloudy skies, when I spied three ravens sitting in the branches of a dead tree. After a moment, I realized that I was seeing two ravens and a hawk. They almost seemed to be sharing the tree peacefully, but in the usual raven way, the hawk was under watch. From time to time one raven displayed and made a rattling call. Twice, the hawk decided to trade places with one of its observers, and a little game of musical chairs ensued as the birds readjusted themselves. Finally the hawk stretched its wings and flew off down the canyon. The two ravens remained calmly behind.
At length it began to rain lightly. I continued to watch the ravens. One decided to fly to a toyon bush growing out of the side of the steep hill above me. Its companion followed. The toyon in Griffith Park are just turning red, and many are not yet ripe at all. Each picked a sprig of berries and returned to the tree, where they nibbled on them. Not a very big meal. Then one raven flew to the middle of a scarp, also above my place on the road. It landed on the steep face of disturbed earth, and proceeded to shovel a bit with its beak. Finally it began to remove some items – hard to see but they looked like large grubs or small bird eggs. It took four or five of the items in its crop and flew back to its tree. It was not so easy to see, but I think the birds shared the food. I realized it must have been a cache, and this also threw some light on the last time I had seen ravens in one of these scarps. At that time I had been able to climb up to see what had interested the bird, but had not found anything. I’d been thinking water or carrion, not cache. There may be multiple uses or attractions to these disturbed areas, but given the difficulty of ground caching in the coastal sage scrub, and the relative inaccessability of the scarp, caching may be the most frequent use.
At this point, the local woodpeckers decided that they’d had enough, and showed up making a real fuss, being much more belligerent with the ravens than the ravens had been with the hawk. First two, then at least four, with their unmistakeable woodpecker voices. The big birds tolerated this for longer than I expected, but after about ten minutes decided to move on, and so I did, too. Eventually I think they ended up on Bee Rock. Their calls carry very well in the canyons, and I would be hearing ravens for the rest of my visit to the park – but there were more birds on hand than the first and second pairs. As I walked across the east side of the park, with Dante’s View far above, I could see at least four to five more at a time sporting in the air above Mt. Hollywood, Dante’s View, and the Sky Ridge that runs north from them.
The theme for the rest of my two hours in the park seemed to be coming and going. Even though the birds can fly right over the peaks, they seem to most frequently take routes that follow the ridges (while foraging) or around the corners of the hills and through the same passes the road takes. When I reached the road’s highest point, at the pass between Mt. Bell and its neighbor, I see two ravens fly out towards the north. I think I’m finally going to see ravens cross the San Fernando Valley on their way to the San Gabriels. But after flying out over the northern slopes, with the cemetery and the Los Angeles River below, they turned back and found a hillside perch in a large pine. So I’ll still have to stake out the Valley and watch for travellers. The literature indicates that there’s a large population out in the desert beyond the San Gabriels, and there has to be a lot of travel between the Santa Monicas and the desert. For the time being, though, the number of ravens visible at once in Griffith Park has yet to exceed ten to 12, and is more usually six to eight.
So at this point I return to the “inside” of the park. Ravens happen to be coming and going through the pass as well. A small group meets and disperses. Territory stuff? After a number of visits, the impression has settled on my mind that different portions of the park belong to specific couples. At the same time, ravens may be seen, and most likely will be seen in a group, if one visits for more than two hours. I have seen them congregate around a lone raptor, in their subtle raven way – not mobbing so much as enforcing – and I’ve seen them just gather and mingle. What they are really doing of course has to be interpreted and reinterpreted as observation continues. BH would find a way to construct an experiment, but I am not feeling quite as ambitious. I see it as a good opportunity to watch more closely and develop more discipline about notes. I suspect some mingling is territory-holders dealing with encroachers. This guess is based on BH’s reports. My most frequent encounters with ravens in the Santa Monicas are with couples of birds. My biggest question remains the same: how many hold breeding territories, where are they, and how concentrated are they?
Just as I had observed one pair on the northeast side of the park, there is a pair on the southeast side. I wonder if it’s the same ones I met on one of my first visits to see ravens. At that time I began to think of them as “Marty and Elaine.” They did not like my attention and would move down the road, literally. Valle del Vista Drive was lined with pine trees – just before the Second World War would be my guess. All the ravens are very fond of the trees, and prefer them for perching. This makes them very easy to observe. So this pair would move, and I would continue to walk. After they first moved, they ceased to sing. They did not move when I approached and passed them – I didn’t see them, actually, until I turned around to doublecheck. After I began to watch them, they flew back up the road. This fascinated me at the time. They clearly had no problem with my being near – just with my watching. Or perhaps they moved for a reason unrelated to me. I did try this again a couple times that day until I had proved (to my own satisfaction) that they don’t mind people walking by but do mind them stopping to pay attention to them. People walk or run or bike frequently down that road, so that’s very typical. It is probably very atypical for anyone to pay obvious attention to them. However, on the day I’m writing about now, the two Toyon-eating ravens did not seem to mind at all my standing and observing, although I kept more distance and tried not to be so obvious.
On the southwest, inside part of the trip, there did seem to be a pair in residence – perching – along the stretch below Captain’s Roost. During the course of sitting and watching them do not much of anything (late afternoon by now) a group of four ravens flew around the bend at the altitude of the road, flying in from the south side of the park, across the canyon, northbound. They dispersed or flew on – at half a mile it gets tricky to follow them. I still had to get back to the car by the Greek Theater, so I pressed on towards the tunnel, and saw the area where the fire had burned. Not too big, but a lot of steep hillside. Should be interesting when the rains come.
