Subject: [Tweeters] Bird Borrowers
Date: Jan 14 20:33:56 2011
From: Rob Conway - robin_birder at hotmail.com



On August 1, 1976 I was still living and working on the family ranch in Central California, near Mariposa. One of my jobs was to walk fencelines where steep slopes and rocky bluffs made riding a horse along them too dangerous for both man and beast. I drove my grandfather's WWII army surplus jeep to the end of a long dirt track almost 6 miles from the house and walked fences from daybreak until about noon on that day before I finally sat down for lunch on a huge granite outcrop that had spectacular views of the foothills and the San Joaquin Valley to the west. I took a peach from my daypack and used a very small pocket knife on attached to the key ring of the jeep to cut it up. Before I took off again in the midday 100 degree heat I walked about 100 feet away to check (and splash in) a spring fed watering trough. As I was coming back to pick up my pack I saw a Raven pick up and fly off with the knife/key ring that I had left on the rock. I yelled to no avail as the bird flew away and had to walk back to the house totally embarrassed. There was no spare key for the already battered and barely running vehicle. The jeep sits a rusted heap in the same spot today.

Remarkably just last summer my nephew found the key and knife over a mile from the snatching spot while he was...walking fence lines. Ravens were not particularly common in that area when I was young, but now they are everywhere in Central California taking advantage of the booming human population and the food and water that comes with the people. As I don't spend much time there any longer I haven't personally seen the impact of the birds but my father reports seeing them feeding on snakes, lizards and baby cottontails on a regular basis. I'm betting a study of Ravens in that area would have interesting results.

Rob Conway
Oakland, CA

robin_birder at hotmail.com