For the past two weeks I have been following a family of Common Ravens that nested just south of Canon City. The raven parents have been excellent parents, patient with their offspring that were reluctant to fly, good providers and protectors. As I watched them at dusk tonight the parents lured (they deposit their food on the ledge and the fledglings follow in order to eat) two fledglings to a safe ledge for the night as I have observed on 2 other occasions when I have been there near dusk. The parent birds flew off together as I have seen them do, sometimes to forage and sometimes to fly together (appearing to spend quality time together without the kids). Then I heard the parents calling as they flew towards the ledge where the fledglings were perched but they didn't stop, instead flying several hundred feet past them. They landed in a tree at the top of the canyon ridge and continued to call repeatedly. It looked like they were attending to something I could not see--then a bobcat walked out in view. The parent ravens called repeatedly and vociferously, escorting the bobcat away from the ledge with their fledglings and even flew at and near it several times. This was very protective behavior as the bobcat was several hundred feet from the ledge with the 2 fledglings (though a third fledgling I could not find tonight might have been closer).
I got the ravens harassing the bobcat on videotape and have uploaded the first videoclip onto my BirdsAndNature <http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com>blog. I will finish editing and upload the second video clip shortly. This was a very cool experience and the video of it came out quite good. SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
