Yep, one more pet rescue.
I guess it was not a pet, but a wild baby raven rescue.
Seems my husband and my dog found it on the trail, on the ground, and thinking it needed rescuing brought it home.
It is kind of large for a baby bird. It is in the dog’s traveling kennel, as you can see from the picture, (here in the back of the truck). Sunday it was there, went to church with us you could say. In fact I ducked out of the last hour of church and found it cawing.
No, crows caw, ravens snort or have a deep croak noise.
My husband speaks raven. Kind of embarrassing for mother Eve, but nonetheless, part of the fun.
This is not the first time we have hand-fed a rescued member of the aviary community. So, Gene knows what to do. Boiling up eggs, mash them with water and feed them to the open-mouthed youngster (via some sort of plastic syringe used for delivering medicine to babies, or vet meds to your dog).
My husband says the bird is always surprised and happy to find a mouthful of nourishment.
We have rescued owls, hawks, pigeons, a cockatiel, and have actually purchased quail, canaries, chickens, finches… They have all made it back into the wilderness.
But they are messy. In the past they have been in my garage, my living room, my bathroom–
The raven has been moved from the garage to the outdoors on the side of the house at my request. The smell of boiled egg mush is not my favorite, ever since we had those chicken-hens that laid their eggs from their roost–splattering them into the straw/dirt, and I retrieving them when I was nauseated with pregnancy.
That did it, no eggs for me after that.
We always learn something new–what is the difference between a crow and a raven?
Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
17 inches long
wingspan is 2.5 ft
flat bill
quiet flying
Ravens (Corvus Corax)
24-27 inches long
wingspan is 3.5-4 ft
curved bill with a tuft of hairs atop
wings make swishing noises
share their food
“Given the tendency of corvids to be large, intelligent, adaptable, ground-foraging birds independent of trees, it is probably only a slight exaggeration to say that the raven (C. corax) is the ultimate Corvid. If so, it is also at the top of the most species-rich and rapidly evolving line of the birds. Is is the ne plus ultra of up-and-comming birds.” -Bernd Heinriech from “Ravens in Winter”
This author has another book about Ravens called “The Mind of a Raven”.
He calls them wolf birds because the ones he studied depended on the wolves in Yellowstone Park to do their killing for them. He has hand-fed his young birds roadkill–I am not sure we have much of that around here–
Could be a problem.
