tisdag 6 augusti 2013

Busy summer!



Not much blogging this summer, but it doesn’t mean that there has been nothing going on.
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

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