Subject: [Tweeters] Urban Everett Raven
Date: Dec 31 13:44:31 2014
From: Jeff Gibson - gibsondesign at msn.com





Today, due to a 'wardrobe failure', I was out shopping for a new cheap used coat.

You see, my old coat's zipper finally failed, after many years use. I was lucky, because it had one of those sorta tube collars, and the zipper got stuck on the way up, and I couldn't unzip it. I was only narrowly able to pull my old coat off, up over my big fat head, thus avoiding having to cut the thing off my body with a knife, or my pruner's. I am thankful that I am a member of a tool-using hominid species, and could've escaped my coat, one way or another.
As it was, whilst driving down busy Rucker Ave., full of six lanes of my fellow consumers, I spotted a Raven.
Hey, remember when people were people? Now we are all just consumers, apparently, if the "media" is your guide. Back when I was in high school (40+ years ago) , in our ecology primer diagram of the 'circle of life', "consumers", were pictured as cows, if I remember correctly. While driving in busy traffic, this bovine image always returns to me. If I was any kind of techno, I would install a loud "moo" on my truck, in lieu of it's current tinny toyota horn.
Well, whatever.
While on the way to shop, I did see that Raven- low over the traffic just about where Rucker Ave. turns into Evergreen Way. Even some supervising Crows seemed a bit put off by all the cars - the Raven circling off across the road. After being resident in Everett for about 27 years now, this would be about my most urban Raven sighting in town ever. I have seen them around the fringes - horning down voles in the fields at the edge of town, and out in the Snohomish delta a bit, but low over mid-day town traffic, never.
Hey, maybe them Ravens will get more urban savvy. Us people could use some survival tips in town. This whole money as a fantasy ecology thing we got going on - even a bird knows better than that.
Jeff Gibsonjust sayin'Everett Wa