Raven
You’re out and about - somewhere in a forest, or a mountainside, or near a cliff edge. It’s summer. The sun’s out, it’s warm. And yet - there’s a chill in the air. You find yourself thinking of forbidding castles, zombies and limited personal hygiene.
Perhaps you’ve run into a live role play reenactment of Game of Thrones. But, more likely, your subconscious is picking up on the sound of a real-life raven, Corvus corax.
All types of crow make harsh caws, but the raven’s is the deepest, the wildest, and the preferred choice of gothic sound designers everywhere.
It’s a guttural croak, sometimes described as a ‘cronk’. Try mimicking it but watch out for the sore throat.
The sound may be reaching you from a bird perched high, in a tall tree or on the ledge of a sheer face of rock. But very often it’s a noise delivered from the open sky. You will likely hear it, from somewhere above you, well before you see the bird.
Despite being our largest crow, big as a buzzard, ravens can be surprisingly tricky to see in the air. The call carries a long way. From where you are, the bird itself may appear to be little more than a dark scrap on the wind.
They are also fond of altitudes, and a bird passing high overhead, calling infrequently, can easily pass undetected.
However, if the bird’s seen well you may pick up the broadness of its wings, its heavy, feathered bill and the relatively long diamond-shaped tail.
The sound of a raven may not always be deemed a welcome one, but many of us in the lowlands of England are happy to hear it again, after a long absence.
Until recently, ravens were completely extinct from many southern and eastern counties of England, having been exterminated along with the larger birds of prey in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In recent decades, the raven has spread back into many of its former haunts. You are now about as likely to see one over the cliffs at Beachy Head or Dover as you are on Dartmoor, or in Snowdonia, or on Cairngorm.
And wherever you find them, you are in the presence of a most characterful bird.
I remember the warden of an RSPB reserve in mid-Wales telling me about the moment he was first convinced that birds sometimes do things for sheer fun. That moment was while watching a raven repeatedly sliding down a sandy slope, on its back.
It’s more common to see their playful agility in flight. When two or more birds are together - and ravens do sometimes gather in great numbers - there’s a fair chance you will see them tumble, dive and flip over in mid-air.
The experience might lead to you to conclude that this, in fact, is what skies were made for.
Next time: Golden Plover
Early Bird Club - 1st Saturday of the month, 7-8am
The monthly Early Bird Club continues for the rest of the year. It’s 7-8am on the first Saturday of the month, and available to paying supporters of Shriek of the Week (along with narrated podcast-style versions of every email since January 2022).
Weather permitting, I’ll be out somewhere to bring you live bird sounds, and you are welcome to bring yours, from wherever you are. Or you can just listen in. On days when the weather gets in the way we listen to recordings, swap stories and look at bird-rich webcams.
If you’d like to join us, you can get access from £5 per month.
Reminder: it’s now ‘Shriek of the Month’ until January.
The weekly emails run January to June, with a slower pace (matching the birdsong) between July and December.
Until next time,
Charlie
Credits:
Raven image by Copetersen www.copetersen.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons