We were walking along the hollow way when we heard it – kronk, kronk, kronk – the unmistakable, resonant call of a raven. It’s a sound I’m very familiar with from visits to the Scottish Highlands, but not one I’ve encountered on home ground, so at first I could barely believe what I was hearing.
Looking up through the leafless branches, we saw the bird flying low overhead. There was no mistaking the diamond-shaped tail, heavy bill, barrel chest and long, thickset neck, which was ruffed with shaggy-looking throat feathers known as hackles. If I had any lingering doubts about the bird’s identity, they were quickly cast aside when two carrion crows left their treetop perches and began mobbing the interloper. The pair were dwarfed. With a wingspan measuring between 120cm and 150cm, and weighing up to 1.5kg, ravens are even bigger than buzzards.
Following decades of persecution by gamekeepers and egg collectors, and the capture of nestlings for the pet trade, this once widespread species was pushed to near extinction throughout lowland Britain by the mid-19th century. The population slowly increased during the mid-20th century, with birds leaving their upland strongholds to recolonise much of their former range. But until relatively recently, ravens remained occasional winter visitors to this area.
During the past 10 years, they have become breeding residents, with pairs nesting on Portsdown Hill, Chichester cathedral (to the consternation of the resident peregrine falcons) and the Stansted Park estate, which lies less than five miles from my local patch. British ravens are largely sedentary, but juveniles disperse during their first winter, so it’s possible that this individual came from one of these natal sites.
One crow dived down, attempting to strike the raven’s back with outstretched claws. The other swooped in from the side, but both were elegantly outmanoeuvred by their larger cousin, which tucked in one wing and flipped upside down, half-rolling out of their way. Righting itself on the next flowing wingbeat, the raven soared across the fields. As it banked towards the cemetery, sunlight glanced off its wings, the glossy black plumage displaying an iridescent petrol-blue and purple sheen.
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