Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Chihuahuan Ravens - A bird is more than just a bird
September 25, 2004

On the morning of September 3rd I heard a cat fight, and being concerned about the safety of my cats I went to investigate. I found Mindy, the big “outdoor” male, in a ferocious fight with a green-collared black and white cat as large as he. Even as I stood near them, yelling, they would not quit fighting. I looked for a big stick with which to go wading into the fray, and as I looked around I found three other animals which had come to investigate.

One of my other cats had showed up, as one would expect. The resident fox was nearby as well, half-hidden by a yucca, but definitely focused on the fight. On a nearby pole of the electric line overhead was a Chihuahuan Raven, cawing loudly. I found my stick and headed in, and the black and white cat tried to sprint away. Mindy kept tackling him, but finally let him go. The raven followed the black and white cat, dive-bombing it and cawing.

For some reason Chihuahuan Ravens rarely come to the southeast side of Midland, so its very presence was noteworthy. If a person heads west or northwest, ravens are common features of the landscape, perched on the electric line pole crossbars. Years ago thousands would congregate in the winter at the open to the air garbage disposal pit at Cole Park, but since its closure the ravens seem to stay to the northwest of town.

Ravens are often locally called crows, but are bigger and less social than crows, which normally do not come up on the Llano Estacado, for they prefer river-bottom habitat with lots of large trees. All corvids (ravens and crows) are intelligent birds. Sometimes a person will capture a baby corvid and raise it – an illegal act. Ravens can be taught to mimic language. As an omnivorous creature, a raven is always investigating anything new, and sometimes develops collections of items that appeal to them (often shiny objects like car keys and jewelry.)

Mindy hissed at me when I tried to pick him up, and refused to leave his post on the edge of his turf. I could see he had a puncture wound on his lower neck. His protective nature is incredible – once on a walk with Deborah and me he charged a stray pit bull that was on the property. I looked up as the raven returned to his pole, fluffing out his feathers, picking at his feet with his bill, and looking down at the tableau of two cats, one fox, and one human, all looking up at him. The raven’s behavior flooded me with a sense of familiar companionship.

After a minute, the fox stood, turned and gracefully vaulted over tall sand dropseed grass and then trotted away. I had to go to work, so I walked back across the pasture to the house. The peculiar actions (seemingly helpful) of the bird brought to mind the important role that ravens have in some American Indian mythologies. I spent a few minutes selecting books from my shelves.

Hamilton Tyler’s “Pueblo Birds and Myths,” Lewis Hyde’s “Trickster makes this world,” and Richard Nelson’s “Make Prayers to the Raven,” all contained references to ravens. Claire Farrer’s “Living Life’s Circle” discusses the role of the clown (trickster) in Apache mythology. Bernd Heinrich’s “Mind of the Raven” and Lawrence Kilham’s “The American crow and the common raven” provided a counterpoint perspective, that of scientists interested in the behavior of animals.

As I passed him on my way to work, the raven was still on his pole. He leaned over and cawed as I pulled up to a complete stop and looked up at him one more time. The cats were out of sight.

I became interested in Tyler’s and Nelson’s work because both books present “native natural histories,” systematic assemblages of descriptive information about a particular environment by an indigenous culture. I had bought the books to look for interesting anecdotes about specific creatures. I later bought Hyde’s book to learn more about the trickster role mentioned in the other books, and had gotten Farrer’s book as part of research into the history of Indian cultures on the Llano Estacado. The two scientific books came from my late ornithologist mother’s library which I had inherited.

“What do you make of a bird that dares to pull the tails of wolves, but flees in terror from a pile of Cheerios?” Heinrich asks. “Ravens help wolves hunt – they locate a moose with a broken leg and start cawing, and the wolves come. The ravens will share in the meal after the wolves begin to butcher the animal.” Nelson reports that the Koyukon people said that “eventually the ravens somehow make the wolves walk away” so plenty of food is left for the ravens. Heinrich describes the ravens he studies not as “subjects” but as “friends” because his captive study ravens “are individualistic and aware,” and develop their own unique personal and emotional relationships with him.

Tyler labels ravens as “birds of balance between nature and man.” Nelson reports that for the Koyukon ravens are both “king and jester (or a magical clown,) representative of the imperfect world in which we live.” Farrer postulates that clowns are important and necessary for societies to go through change. “None of us are comfortable with constantly changing situations. The threat of chaos and the threat of the unknown often paralyze us. Clowns are paradox incarnate. Apache clowns focus on the most important issue facing the tribe, and then act and boldly say things in ways that stimulate the tribal members to seek new perspectives and solutions to the issue.”

Two other “fool” characters come to mind from classic Western European literature. In Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” the fool is revealed as wise. Erasmus’ “Stultiltia” is a medieval examination of the role of the fool. Tricksters figure in every culture worldwide. For example, there is Loki of the Norse, Eshu of the African Yorubas, Krishna the butter thief of India, Hermes of Greek mythology, Brer Rabbit and Signifying Monkey of African-American folklore, Anansi of the African Zulus, while many American Indian groups have Coyote as a trickster as other groups use ravens – the list goes on and on. Tricksters are the embodiment of ambiguity, ambivalence, contradiction, and paradox. Tricksters “get life going again,” according to Hyde.

We all can be fools, doing awkward and clumsy things, and how we handle others’ perception of our moments of foolishness is a measure of our character. In the long run, we forge new means of adjusting to a changing world by doing and recovering from acts of foolishness. The raven’s behavior was foolish – considering that we humans do use them for target practice at times.