Now that it’s Nesting Season 2009, we’ll be keeping an eye on this and other sites around Los Angeles, to see if former sites are used again. It was indeed a miracle that even one fledgling survived, given the very dangerous conditions they have to contend with while growing up on one of LA’s busiest boulevards.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/animals/video/raven_begs_scraps.html

The billboard reads “hip has found a home” but I’d call that “chic” wouldn’t you? Anyway it is about nesting season, so maybe this raven is considering a condo down the street. I’d been taking pictures of it for a few minutes, and it decided to take a closer look, flying in a circle over me at about 20 feet up, literally eyeing me up and down before returning to the billboard. The only other ravens I recall doing that live nearby in Runyon. Below, the same raven in a small pine a few yards from the billboard. It was awfully close to street level for a raven, and possibly the unusual behavior of human triggered some awareness that something strange or new was going on. It hopped three nervous neophobe hops on the billboard before flying over to take a look at me. They are used to humans paying them no notice at all here. A human actually peering at them and taking pictures has to be a novelty – something out of the ordinary in a very ordinary and predictable environment.

Today, as I was waiting for a light at Mansfield and Melrose, a pair hove into view at rooftop height and glided to a stop on telephone poles behind some shops – above the alley that runs parallel to Melrose. They seem to favor both poles and alleys. I’ve got photos from the same alley at Poinsettia.

One had a large crust with it, clearly very happy. The third was chased off by the second, but not after a good bit of winging in the I’m-a-poor-hungry-juvenile assuming-subordinate-posture mode. After a while it tried to come back, only to suffer the same banishment. The superior bird didn’t even ruff or fluff, just hopped up towards the junior, which provoked the pathetic pleading and retreat. Meanwhile, bird with crust flew over to a lush pine across the street, and proceeded to cache the treat in the dense needles of a bough. It was really exciting to see behaviors that I’d only read about till now, and to see them on my doorstep! (As usual, the photos are being developed and will appear soon).

And I thought Tim Allen in my local 7-Eleven was cool. The only thing better than this will be raven watching in Dodger Stadium when baseball season comes back around.

Here’s a much better one:

Click on the photos to see many more from that day at Flickr. Wine lovers might be interested to see the vineyard recently established by a homeowner – it is just west of the Hollywood sign.

Toyon (but in high desert, not Hollywood)

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.