Ravens in Hollywood » Locations

Mysteries and Sacraments of Life

ravens — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:32:58 +0000

Not 15 minutes after our arriving at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church, Mom and Pop raven also turned up. They lighted on the steeple and had a quick look at the nest there – too exposed, apparently, to rain and owls – and then they flew around to the real nest, the messy looking pile of sticks and twigs atop the head of St Brendan in his niche on the church’s facade. Here they coo’d and made romance and began to tidy their last year’s work, very much “in the mood for love.” All the while, parishioners had gathered in the church below for a funeral, sleek wealthy Hancockers in sombre threads. Rituals of life and death for the avian and primate inhabitants of Los Angeles. Anthropology or ornithology or both? Corvus corax and Homo sapiens have lived these intertwined destinies for millennia now, so much alike, but physically so far apart.

Ravens of Hancock Park

ravens — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:45:53 +0000

RinH is looking forward to the imminent nesting season. This year we’ve decided to focus on specific nesting sites, hoping to observe them through the whole season. The nest at Apple and Fairfax is the most convenient, so that will be our primary site. However, the nest at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church was so successful last year, we can’t help but visit to see if it works again this year. One question, for instance, is why is there an unused nest on the northeast side of the steeple? Was it constructed, and then rejected? If the birds are going to re-use a nest, how to they go about it? And how on earth does do the parishioners survive a nestful of raven chicks raining down poop on the church porch.

Since ravens in Hollywood and the adjacent community of Hancock Park must be very familiar with local structures, we have to tip our hat to the very entertaining Houses of Hancock Park.

Literally keepimg their nest eggs in a bank

ravens — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:26:06 +0000

This is not the first year for this location near Playa del Rey.

On the shoulders of giants

ravens — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:29:48 +0000

Much as expected there is every sign that the nest on the facade of Blessed Sacrament Church is in use again this season.

Fairfax and Apple

ravens — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:55:07 +0000

Nest rebuilt and occupied in the usual pylon

A Tradition Renewed

ravens — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:01:44 +0000

Ravens building nest on window ledge of Custom Hotel. Apparently they approve of the new manager.

Sekret project

ravens — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:49:51 +0000

The Billy Wilder Square ravens are still hard at work bringing twigs into the billboard above Mashti Malone’s. They’ve learned to fly into the bottom of it with a graceful arcing swoop. Impossible to see at all what exactly they are managing to contrive in there. The location doesn’t seem likely to be fledgling friendly.

A corvid mystery on the Bay

ravens — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:53:57 +0000

It does appear to be true that ravens neither live nor forage in the vicinity of Monterey. And there seems to be no obvious reason, at least to this amateur naturalist, for this odd range limit. C. brachyrhynchos loves it here, as do two species of jays. Can’t imagine there is a predator here that does not exist elsewhere in the state, and there is an overpopulation of C. corax everywhere else. I cannot think of any other factors that would affect ravens but not crows. This leaves me with only one rather weak hypothesis. This is one of the first places that humans with guns settled in California. They may have brought with them rural beliefs about predation of ravens on newborn livestock, or may have been shooting at ravens for other reasons. And then a cultural taboo on the area has been passed on by the birds ever since. This seems to have happened in the eastern US as well, so maybe it is not totally far-fetched.

As with crows and the Santa Monica mountains, there is some kind of zone in the normal range of the species that is simply passed over. Maybe I should go back to investigating the no-crow zone at home. It might be too simple to put it down to absence of lawns and other anthropogenic factors. As for Monterey and crows, there are plenty, probably too many, but I have not had time to see what they are really living on. Some are clearly local pairs, comfortable in their neighborhood trees, but down by the shore and downtown, there are lots of juvenile gangs having all sorts of fun in the strong winds and competing with all the other urban birds – which here includes Euphagus cyanocephalus, or Brewer’s blackbird. Over in Carmel, the latter seems to fill the niche usually occupied by sparrows in the most built-up areas, but that’s only a passing observation.

WeHo gateway

ravens — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:48:30 +0000

Noticing frequent visits by a pair of ravens here but suspect they are either Iron Mountain or Billy Wilder Square birds.

Labor Day

ravens — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:08:52 +0000

Big, pretty, vocal raven greets me at Pico and Robertson