The three raven chicks did
fledge eventually, which was somewhat a shock to the young parents. Tosta,
presumably the only female among the three, was first out of the nest. We found
her on the ground one morning – missing most of her tail feathers. It turned
out that the unexperienced parents were bewildered by having one of their
chicks on the ground while the other two still in the nest, so they tried to drag her back. Pulling out tail feathers
as a result. The next chick, a huge male called Gorm, came two days later. And
now the parents had learned, so he only lost one or two feathers. And as you
can guess, when Flygg, the third chick (also a male) fledged, the parents
didn’t crumble a single feather. Siden and Juno continued to feed the
fledgelings for a few weeks, and also allowed us to feed Tosta, who is the only
of the three that will come near us. And after yet a few weeks we integrated
the two aviaries, which was a totally undramatic business. We had expected
fights and maybe injured chicks, but they immediately seemed to accept each
other which was a great relief to us. And the hierarchy in the group is
unchanged, with Siden as top bird and the young ravens at the bottom. As it
should be.
We have also carried out a caching study – a cooperation
with Oxford – comparing ravens, new caledonian crows and jackdaws. This was
when the ravens were still separated, but Siden, Juno, Rickard and None all
accepted to be individually tested in the runway.
In early July we attended the third conference of
Comparative cognition
in Wienna, and right now Mathias is attending the Behavior conference in Newcastle. In fact, at
this very moment he is preparing his talk in his hotel room:)
Apart from this, we have done some construction work around
the facility, and the plan is to do the painting and finish up by mid
September.
I will be back with some fresh pictures soon!
//Helena
