Ravens in Hollywood

We love this sort of news

ravens — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 22:50:22 +0000

We should probably be grateful that birds do not have opposable digits…

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/03/20/vultures-use-tools-ravens-use-vultures-ravens-are-tools/

Dr. John Marzluff to speak in Los Angeles in May

ravens — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:23:28 +0000

http://www.environment.ucla.edu/calendar/showevent.asp?eventid=474

There are ravens living at

ravens — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 04:46:46 +0000

Wilsher and Federal. I can feel it in my bones.

Apple Street Update

ravens — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 22:07:48 +0000

I really love it when proverbs come true, and “third time’s the charm” was the charm on my third visit to Apple Street to see if anyone was home. And they were. If they are planning to nest, they are not sitting yet. This makes me wonder. Picture from 2008.

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.

Dog Days, Raven Nights – Marzluff, John M.; Marzluff, Colleen; Heinrich, Bernd – Yale University Press

ravens — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:01:15 +0000

We are looking forward to this!

Dog Days, Raven Nights – Marzluff, John M.; Marzluff, Colleen; Heinrich, Bernd – Yale University Press.

Being a foodie isn’t just for urban primates

ravens — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:49:55 +0000

Ravens in downtown LA are enjoying a gourmet snack – Vaux’s Swifts. These visitors to LA are vulnerable as they come and go from their chimney. The LA Weekly blog has the story.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/outdoors/vaux-swifts-birds-over-broadwa/

Richly deserved

ravens — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:55:11 +0000

Crow Planet and its author win the 2010 Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Award! Congratulations, Lyanda Lynn Haupt.

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.