Well, predictably for this blog, Dennis is a crow. He’s a young crow who’s gone through many life changes since his wild early days as a rowdy mobber of local photographers. I first wrote about him two years ago in The Young and the Restless. He was hanging around with fellow fec … | Continue reading
The artifacts we gaze at in museums are often used to interpret chapters of human history. The object we’ll look at today is not in a museum, yet it is a window into some important local history. Crow history. This golden seat of power has been passed down through generations. Wh … | Continue reading
If only I could bring some real crows and ravens along to one of my Raven/Crow presentations; they speak more eloquently for themselves than I could ever do. This morning they magically appeared to demonstrate many of the things I cover in my talks, in the calendar and here, on m … | Continue reading
Never mind the calendar, all that equinox stuff, and the availability or otherwise of pumpkin-spiced lattes: the local crows have decided that fall started this morning. I could tell things had changed as soon as I left the house. While the leaves are turning colour a bit, and it … | Continue reading
When I wasn’t looking for birds in the wild on our UK trip this spring, I was looking for them in the art we saw in the galleries, cathedrals and castles we wandered through. It’s surprising how often you find them, in windows, mosaics and carvings, some contemporary and others c … | Continue reading
The title of this post sounds, I know, rather over-the-top dramatic and gothic, but I just couldn’t resist putting all those words together. And it really is an accurate title; being about my image “Raven Kiss” located on an interpretive sign at Devils Lake, near Mission. BC. The … | Continue reading
My tech stress and the raven’s nest have nothing in common except that one is proving therapeutic in the face of the other. I think you can guess which one is which. The technical bit is boring, so I’ll just tell you that my file storage system is suddenly lifeless and incommunic … | Continue reading
The Tower of London is a familiar place to me. Not, I’m happy to say, because I’ve languished in one of the many dungeons, but from annual holidays to London to visit my grandparents when I was a kid. A trip to the Tower was always on the agenda, leading to a well-worn family jok … | Continue reading
Still no local crow fledglings but today’s big surprise was — a baby raven! The high, slightly panicked calls were the first clues that we had a young raven in the ‘hood. Seeing the pink beak and grey eyes once I got closer were clinchers — a youngster just a few weeks out of the … | Continue reading
We’re still waiting for the appearance of our local crow fledglings, but we did find lots of them up north on our family camping trip this weekend. Plus bonus marmots! You’d think the northern crows would be later in the nesting schedule than the Vancouver crows, but the parents … | Continue reading
Life during nesting season is quite exciting enough for most crows. Keeping the babies in the nest fed and un-eaten by others provides enough thrills, thank-you very much. Bongo usually deals with these challenges with expeditious equanimity. Eagle needs chasing — no problem. A c … | Continue reading
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fooled repeatedly. I hear that insistent begging call, and I think — “Aha, a crow fledgling!” There SHOULD be some out and about by now — but it’s been another perilous nesting season and each time I hear the begging call, it turns out to be not … | Continue reading
I have so many things to write about — the amazing things we saw on our recent UK trip, as well as everything going on in the action-packed few blocks around here in the midst of crow nesting season. Partly as a distraction from the stress of minute-by-minute nesting news, I’ve d … | Continue reading
MARVIN, MAVIS & LUCKY The quickest way to tell if the crows in the garden or alley are Norman and Nancy or Marvin, Mavis and Lucky is to do a quick head count. Lucky is staying very close to mom and dad, even though he’s now almost two years old. As we’ve seen in previous … Conti … | Continue reading
NORMAN AND NANCY’S TRYING TIMES Poor Norman and Nancy are having a bit of a frustrating nesting season so far, working on their third nest so far. The first nest, in one of the coveted red-leaved plum trees, disappeared without a trace overnight, so I suspect that humans, less ex … | Continue reading
BONGO AND BELLA’S EARLY START Bongo and Bella seem to be on their own now as Brunhilde, their fledling from 2023, hasn’t been seen for a few weeks now. I think she may have been trying to get Bongo to mate with her, at which point Bella put her clawed foot down and insisted it … … | Continue reading
THE EARL AND ECHO TEAM EFFORT Earl an Echo had a busy summer last year. They fledged their youngster a bit later than the other crows and two of them are still with mom and dad. Echo is sitting on the nest early this year, high up in a large cherry tree and having the … Continue … | Continue reading
TENACIOUS BENJAMIN Sighting of Ben, the crow with a curled back foot, are relatively rare as his territory is slightly out of my usual dog walking route. Sometimes months go by without a sign of him and I think, oh dear … And then … there he is again. We saw him last winter on … … | Continue reading
RETURN OF THE WALKERS When I said in the last post that I’m “almost certain” that White Wing is gone, it’s because you never really know for sure with crows. Take, for example, the Walkers. Since they both disappeared last summer I thought they were gone for good. Mr. Walker, who … | Continue reading
I’m in England now (fingers crossed!) — but before I left I felt I had to write a little catch-up on all of the local crow news. There’s so much to write about, I’ve divided them up into the stories of each crow family I follow, to appear over the next few days. I notice … Contin … | Continue reading
One last trip to the mountains before the spring melt makes the trail impassable. Also the last trip before our month away in the UK. Of course, I hoped that this excursion would include a little raven farewell — but it seemed as if that were not to be. I wasn’t surprised by thei … | Continue reading
Well, you just never know what you might see up on the mountain! You may remember that I wrote last month about seeing a raven pair devoted to pre-nesting behaviour, with lots of beak play and mutual preening of feathers. I think we saw a different pair on this most recent trip ( … | Continue reading
There’s been so little snow on the mountains this winter, and so few opportunities to get up there to enjoy the quiet and see the ravens that each trip is precious. Our most recent trip was a special treasure. First of all, there was lots of fresh squeaky snow, and the trail cond … | Continue reading
Musical aptitude: is it inherited or taught? Brunhilde has both advantages; being the offspring of a well-known local chanteur, and benefiting from his esteemed tutelage since birth. She is the daughter* of Bongo and Bella and — of their three 2023 fledglings— she always has been … | Continue reading
It’s a sound I’ve waited for since last summer. For whatever reason, Bongo only “boings” during nesting and fledgling season, so his first call of the year is a sure sign that spring is close, and that nesting is at least starting to cross his mind. It was just after Valentine’s … | Continue reading
With no new snow on the mountains and none forecast, we decided to head for the hills anyway. I needed to see some ravens! Predictably, trail conditions were horrible. There’s enough packed and icy snow in shaded areas to make boot spikes necessary — at least for those of us in t … | Continue reading
The Still Creek Crow Roost is like a nesting doll of crow stories. It’s an action-packed epic with a cast of thousands — bringing to mind, in scale and scope, something like Lord of the Rings or Ben Hur (depending on your generational terms of reference.) But if you stay awhile y … | Continue reading
If you receive this post in an email, click on the title and go to the website to best view your Valentine video! You may also enjoy, on this day of love and romance: George and Mabel: A Love Story (Feb 2016, reposted Feb, 2020) Marvin and Mavis: A Love Story (Feb 2019) … Continu … | Continue reading
A month into 2024, and the crows, like the rest of us, have already experienced several seasons. Vancouver has had “mild and wet” followed by “bloody freezing” and “snowpocalypse” leading, inevitably to “slushmageddon” with, “record-breakingly warm and wet” to round out the month … | Continue reading
Every time I see ravens they tell me at least one more new and amazing thing about themselves. On our most recent trip up to the local mountain, I learned TWO new new things! 1. How To Attract A Raven’s Attention This was my most dramatic discovery. (For those days when my amateu … | Continue reading
Seeing a raven right in my very own urban back alleyway is always a thrill, and we had a couple of such visits over the holidays. It’s also a great chance to observe crows and ravens together. Crows rarely, if ever, venture into the mountain territory of the ravens — but ravens a … | Continue reading
The senior management team here at June Hunter Images/Urban Nature Blog is generally serious and very work-focused. They can be quite demanding — like that time Edgar called a special meeting to discuss my lacklustre work performance. I still shudder to think of it. They also tak … | Continue reading
It’s smoky out there (though nothing near as bad as the air quality closer to the wildfires in other parts of BC and the Northwest Territories) so I’m staying inside making a second blog post for the day. These are photos taken this morning as the red, smoky sun rose over East Va … | Continue reading
Bongo and Bella Edition Bongo and Bella are both looking pretty scruffy these days. Like all crow parents, they’re dealing with the late summer trifecta of ongoing drought, moulting season and teenagers. There has been no bonging lately, so it’s impossible for me tell, for now, w … | Continue reading