The Sultan river is thick with dead Pink Salmon right now. Today I was out with a group of students and we came out into a good viewing spot overlooking a river bar with hundreds of dead fish. There were three TV's on the bar, hopping about. They are much larger than I thought. After a bit we noticed that the TV's had sort of staked out a space between 13 ravens, the TV's were in their own little cluster with Ravens upstream and downstream. At one point a TV, which is easily 5 times the size of a raven hopped over to the upstream side of the TV space and was confronted by three ravens, two of which threw out their wings and this caused several nearby to start calling. The TV took a hop back, lowered its kind of sideways as if closely examining the closest raven. The closest raven then flew up and at the TV! which awkwardly flahopped (hopped and flapped) back close to the other two TV's. The raven circled the TV's calling out what sounded like insults to us humans then landed downstream. At few minutes later an Eagle appeared coming down the river and all three TV's and all but two of the Ravens. We then noticed that there were several crows further downstream all in their own group, which we did not notice until they all flew, 22-25 in a group into the trees.
It was interesting how all the species were segregated and also gave way before the eagle.
Rob Sandelin
Sky Valley Environments
www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
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