In the Company of Ravens

So I'm hiking up out of Red Rock Crossing Park, back up to Slick Rock and the Secret Slick Rock Trail, the one that got me in this fix in the first place, because I could not resist its name, or the promise it held of finding something secret, something special. The turkey vulture has given me several close passes and some of his invisible, totemic wisdom. And then two ravens hove into view.

 

I could tell they were young birds first by their voices. I haven’t been around breeding ravens in my lifetime, having lived out of their range, but this spring in the New River Gorge area of West Virginia, I heard what had to be a young raven yelling for its parents in the mist. It was a high-pitched, bleating whoop, an adenoidal shadow of the mellow toots and deep honks the bird would make later in life.

These were yelling. A lot. They took an immediate interest in me, circling just overhead, dangling their legs, talking talking talking.

 

Well. I thought perhaps that this is something ravens do in Sedona, that they don’t do elsewhere. I wondered if people hand feed them. I still wonder that. I wonder about everything I saw in Sedona. Whatever made the ravens come and seek me out, I was bursting with joy at the simple fact that they did. “Waugh! Waugh!” they called again and again, as they circled and played in the updraft over Slick Rock.

I spoke softly to them, then louder, as it became clear they were not afraid of me in the least. I remembered lying down on a clifftop at Cape St. Mary’s in Newfoundland, maybe 33 years ago, on a fine, cool, foggy, drizzly summer day, wondering what the ravens would do if I feigned death.  I got my answer through slitted eyes as they quartered lower and lower. Finally I heard the soft plop of a raven landing on the turf just a few feet behind my head. I got an instant, primal image of that hefty black beak plunging into my eye socket and sat up flailing, a human windmill. I was doing that GET ‘EM OFF ME ROSIE thing Humphrey Bogart did in “African Queen” when he dove down to fix the prop on their leaky old boat and came up covered in great fat leeches.  Shudder!

I never knew the raven’s true intent in landing behind my head, but I wasn’t going to risk an eye by letting him show me. Why else would he land there? Curiosity, certainly. But maybe because he thought I was dead, and tasty too.

This was an altogether different thing. The energy coming off these young ravens was playful, benign, almost doglike. They wanted to see what I was up to. They wanted to know if I had anything for them. They wanted to play with me.  I was laughing at their antics, as one kept ducking his head between his dangling legs in flight.  It reminded me of a kid riding a bike hands-free, just trying to impress whomever might be watching.

I began to make a game of trying to photograph the two against good backdrops, and, as I do with all my animal and bird subjects, I talked them through it. “Ahh. Red rock. Goood. Nice one. Let’s try that again!”

“You are BEAUTIFUL! Well, after a good molt you’ll be even more beautiful. But what a start you’ve made!”

I could see the pink corners on their mouths that told me they were youngun’s. That, the dull brown matte juvenile plumage, and their high teenage voices were the tipoffs. I wondered if adult ravens would behave this way. I never got the feeling they’d been hand-raised; no, they were truly wild, just unafraid, bold. 

“This is nice, but do you think you could fly over by Cathedral Rock for me? You’d look so good against that backdrop!”

To my amazement, they turned and beat their way over to the Rock, circling against it. I don’t think they spoke English. I think they picked up on the picture I had in my head, on the pure electric communication passing between our minds. I was visualizing a picture of them against the Rock, and I think they saw it in their heads. I also believe they were enjoying my enthusiastic reaction to their antics. I think it perfectly possible that they knew I was photographing them, and wanted to put on a good show for the camera. Ravens don’t miss much. Their eyesight, the things ravens must notice, put us humans to shame, make us look like we’re moving through life with our eyes closed.

 The ravens returned from Cathedral Rock and flew at eye level and what felt like arm's length, back and forth in front of me. By now, they certainly knew I had no food for them. I barely had enough water for me. But I was headed for my car, and all would be well.

Finally they landed.

Their shadows on the rock--were they enjoying them as much as I was?

All of it. The communication we shared, the simple but obvious joy in each other's presence. 

Their finding me was like coming upon someone in the middle of nowhere, and saying Hello! Hello! How's it going? Where are you from? You'd never do that in the grocery store. But out here, meeting someone is special.

 I felt I was in the presence of someone, perhaps people I knew, in raven form. The birds' interest in me was too intense, too friendly, too joyful to be anything other than directed. By whom, I could not know. I might guess, but I'd never know.

All I knew is that I felt accompanied. 

Entertained. Loved, even.

Not alone.

If that be your only message, ravens, it was received with joy and great humility. 

What an honor this was, to be for a little while in the company of ravens. 

Arizona Birds, From Small to Mighty

 Sometimes it's kind of nice not to know what to expect. My Sedona birding experience was pure, untroubled by any consult with a field guide whatsoever. Heh. This is how I package my laziness. As purity.
I couldn't make this little fellow anything other than a blue-gray gnatcatcher, though my memory was whispering, "Maybe it's a black-tailed!" Of course I didn't know at the time to look under the tail for white spots (black-tailed) or a big white outer panel (blue-gray). But it sounded like a blue-gray, so I'm going with that. Happy to be corrected here. This is hardly an unequivocal shot, I know.

One of the totally cool things about birding in an unfamiliar place in August is the preponderance of new fledglings, all vocalizing. I'd hear this random chewp or teryew repeated incessently, and think, "Well, if I were back East, I'd say that was a baby grosbeak." Which is how I identified this baby blue grosbeak, by that and the hard metallic chink! his parents were voicing.

 When identifying fledglings, just wait around. A parent will come soon enough and give you the big hint.

The most vociferous of them all were baby tanagers, which I knew were around from their distinctive nasal teryew  call. I thought, "Hmm. That sounds like a baby scarlet. Maybe it's a summer." I'd never been around enough breeding summer tanagers to know their juvenile location call. This is the incessant call they give to tell their parents where to bring the groceries.

So cute, and so awkward, this wing-fluttering summer tanager babe. His bill is stained with blackberries, which were the most easily available things his parents could find with which to stuff him into silence. I'm guessing at his sex from the bright orangey yellow coming in on his breast.

 

His mother was an even olive-yellow, but Dad was already slipping into autumnal patchwork green and tomato-red plumage.

 

I kept hearing a very chickadee-like ser-dee-dee-dee high in the treetops. I was delighted to find it coming from a bridled titmouse. I wasn't expecting that!

 

 I suspect this to be a bird of the year (this year's young) with its rather short crest and dark cheek.

It swung upside down to inspect some insect damage on a rolled, yellowed leaf. That's what titmice and other gleaners do--look for holes and webs and little rolled shelters that caterpillars use for houses.

 

It pecked into the rolled leaf and found something good, probably a caterpillar that had pasted the edges together with silk and lived inside the roll.

Then, to my amusement, the leaf it was pecking at came off in its foot, and the bird clung there for a few moments, holding the leaf like a parrot would, while clinging precariously to another.

 

 "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" I wondered, and reviewing the shots, I had! That was cool. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many young birds learning their trade in the shade of the oak-clad canyon. I was glad to be there. I had tanked up on water and felt better, and I was readying myself for the climb when I greeted two women, older than me, who were headed toward the vortex site. One had an oxygen tank in a bag over her shoulder. I felt a pang of sympathy for someone who had to carry her air supply with her wherever she went. They were from Tulsa, and they were coming here to spread the ashes of a friend at the vortex site. Once again I reflected that this place, Sedona, attracts people for reasons of spirit.

We talked long enough to realize that we had a lot in common. Finally, keeping in mind the building heat and my new friend's oxygen pack, I said, "You'll never believe where I'm parked." I gestured up over the rimrock and said I'd be climbing it to get to my car. I  told them how I'd found my way down into the park.  "You'll need this," the first gal said, and reached into her pack to put an ice-cold bottle of water in my hand. I refused it, saying they'd be needing it. "We have more. You need this. Take it!" She literally made me take it. I put it to my lips, intending to take just a sip, and drained the entire bottle in one go. Wow. That was so good. It felt like life itself. I went to the hose tap and filled it, and drained that, too. Only on the third fill was I ready to hike back up to my car. I thanked her again and again and we parted. Guardian angels, they were.

When I got to the top of Slick Rock again, there was someone waiting for me. A turkey vulture swooped silently in, very close.

Again and again it passed by me, legs dangling in the hot air, taking me in as I was drinking it in. "You are such a fine bird," I said. "You're my totem bird. Thank you for coming to see me. Do you think you could fly over by the big rock so I could make a picture that shows where you and I are?"

But of course.  The bird turned and took off for Cathedral Rock.

Then it circled back.

I was left with an enduring image of its guardian spirit, watching over me as I fumbled my way through its desert home, heading back to my car.