Ravens

Yesterday I watched some very naughty raven behavior. I had to laugh, but I also commiserated with the victim.

A huge cow moose was grazing the willows along Anchorage’s coastal trail, along with her young one. The moose who were born last May here are now about half-size, and staying close to their moms in their first winter. And this has been a hard winter for moose here because of all the snow: instead of struggling through the deep snow, the moose use our roads and trails, so there are opportunities for many encounters. I came within three feet of a big mama moose just a few days ago as I was walking the coastal trail, keeping to the far outside in case fat tire bikes came by. It was early in the morning and pretty dark along that section of trail – suddenly I realized that the huge black mound just off my right shoulder was a moose bedded down in the snow! Fortunately she was comfortable and didn’t want to get up.

Yesterday I was watching what may have been the same mama moose from my window, as she browsed the willows with her young one and then folded up her legs and settled down into the deep, soft snow at the inlet edge of the trail. They make it look comfy when they do that.

Just then a pair of ravens landed on the trail a few feet away from the moose. I grabbed my binoculars thinking that it might get interesting. Sure enough, one of the ravens hopped toward the mama moose. You could almost hear him saying to the other raven, “hey, want to see something funny…” He hop/fluttered over the deep snow closer and closer to mama moose, and you could see her try to swivel her head to get a look at him, but the raven kept behind her, went right around her back where she couldn’t see him, and then he jumped forward and pecked her hard. Those big furry ears went way back and she shook her head. He did it again. Mama moose got to her feet – surprisingly quickly – like a mom who’s just gone over the breaking point. She turned on a dime and put her head down and went for the raven. He took wing, but didn’t go very far, to land maybe fifteen feet away on a trail sign. The other raven just sat there on the trail, probably laughing.

Those ravens seemed as naughty as a pair of bored six year olds. It brought out the grandma in me, who wanted to yell out the window at them to quit bugging and go do something constructive.