King of the aviary

Today my plan was to train the ravens to be separated. When they were younger this was almost impossible as they they got very scared when left alone in either of the aviaries, and we stopped trying. Now, the situation is sometimes quite the opposite - they seem like it too much! Especially the low ranked birds seem to enjoy the moment of solitude - beeing king or queen of the aviary for a moment - with no dominant bird setting the rules. When this happens, they totally ignore me, fly off to perch somewhere and start to display.

Hans in a typical raven display posture

 And the display is magnificent, both the impressive body posture with the chin feathers all fluffed, and the charachteristic sounds, leaving nobody in doubt of who's in charge - at the moment.
So this is what happened today. Hans, ranked as number three out of four males, came down to retrieve one frolic, stuffed it securely away in his pouch, and then flew off to enjoy his moment.

//Helena