Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures With Wolf-Birds (7 page)

After we sipped coffee late into the night, Klaus lured Jakob back into his cage with a raw egg, but once inside, the bird showed not a hint of getting tired and wanting sleep. Though not participating in our conversation, he seemed alert and interested. Occasionally, he solicited a head-scratch by fluffing his head at the cage bars, or he poked a piece of paper out as if playfully asking someone to pull it.

Why didn’t the raven trash the apartment? We can only speculate, but given my subsequent lengthy tests of raven curiosity (Chapter 5), I propose the following explanation. Initially, Jakob had not been free in the apartment. For the first two months, he had remained in the cage. During that time, he had seen most of the apartment, and his interest in its contents had faded. The
new
things Jakob saw, like my pen, were always the objects that people carried about in their hands, so they
were interesting enough to warrant further notice. Investigation of the new things could be motivated by curiosity, and it has been the curious birds that through evolution have always found the unexpected and perhaps rare food items that others passed up. The corvid line of birds all share this capacity of curiosity. It is their trademark. One wonders if it is the key that has allowed them to flourish and diversify. They say curiosity killed the cat, but curiosity is also adaptive, provided it is backed up with good judgment.

My next close and personal encounter was with Merlin, an eight-year-old in the family of Californians Duane Callahan and Susan Marfield. It was early August in southern California, at “Camp Pozo” near San Luis Obispo, where I had come to spend the week. Camp Pozo is a ramshackle trailer with its various accoutrements spread out under the live oaks on a hillside. In evidence were several old dead vehicles and various other debris from casual, long-term human occupancy. This little Shangri-la is located at the end of a dirt road on a cattle ranch near the town of Pozo. Pozo itself is little more than a few houses around a saloon under a big cottonwood tree. Duane and Susan have come here for the last eight years to vacation with Merlin and to visit Charles, Duane’s brother. Lady, an Australian sheepdog, two horses, and Katche, a cat, reside there as well.

We had come the day before from Santa Cruz in the Callahans’ orange Chevy truck with the blue camper top that has been marked up with a few white decorations from Merlin himself. Merlin always travels inside, in his wire screen carry-on cage that is jokingly called his “jail.” On camping trips, he treats it as his home base and sanctuary, returning to it eagerly at night, wherever it may be found. At the Callahans’ home in the deep, dark redwood groves near Santa Cruz, Merlin’s cage sits on a stand of two-by-fours in the living roomkitchen. Merlin is let free in the house daily, and he spends most of his free time perched on Duane’s knee. Merlin is calm as a clam most of the time, although once a day he gets animated and flies around the room, negotiating the tight turns around the central fan with no problem. The door and living room window are left open in the summer,
but he never tries to go outside, although he has every opportunity to do so.

After we had loaded him into his cage and put that into the camper, we eagerly began the four-hour drive to Pozo. Merlin perched forward, maintaining contact with Duane in the cab. Like a dog eager to come home after a long drive, Merlin became restless, and excitedly hopped about when we got within a mile or two of our destination. Once there, Duane immediately let him out. With few preliminaries, Merlin launched himself high into the air, flying several loops above the chaparral before circling down and alighting on Duane’s shoulder.

At camp, he sleeps in his cage just as he does in Santa Cruz, but he wakes up earlier. It is not safe to be out when the great horned owls begin to fly, and each evening, one commonly does fly by Camp Pozo. Merlin appears anxiously to seek out Duane in the evening to be “tucked into bed.” In the morning, Duane again lets him out. Even though Merlin is here in the wild, he stays near his “family.”

Young ravens sleep by bowing head (left) or tucking head into feathers of back (right)
.

His first calls the morning I was there were typical loud raven calls. Nobody got up. He next tried two series of high-pitched calls that mimicked crow alarm calls. It was the first time I had ever heard a raven sound like a crow. He followed up with a two-note rasping call that I also had not heard before, then he softly uttered a series of “Hi,
Hi, Hi,” and “Merlin, Merlin, Merlin…” and some barely audible gurgling noises that I couldn’t decipher. He had his own unique vocabulary.

When we arose at last, thirsty for strong hot coffee, Merlin was silent again. Duane said that Merlin used to try to get him up early by making a lot of noise.

Duane, with coffee cup in hand, looked at the cloudless blue sky and declared, “Another hot one. Merlin won’t do a lot of flying. He’d rather spend his time on my shoulder in the shade.” With that, he walked to the trailer, crawled inside, and exchanged morning greetings with Merlin.

“Merlin—how are you?”

Merlin and Duane in mutual greeting ceremony
.

A few soft grunts came from within.

“Want to come out now?”

“Mm, mm,” said Merlin.

After Merlin gave a few more soft
mm
’s and grunts, Duane opened the “jail” door. Merlin, sleek and eager, hopped out. After the exchange of a few more pleasantries, he flew up to Duane’s shoulder.

“Want some chicken?”

“Mmmm.”

“Tasty?”

“Mmmm.”

“Is this special?”

“Mm.”

“Want some more?”

“Mm.”

“Alright!”

Merlin and Susan
.

Social amenities and long conversations over, Merlin spun his head back and forth, scanning in all directions. He blinked once or twice, and
flew off with strongly beating wings over the clearing and through the oaks. Soon he was high above them. After several circles over Camp Pozo, he banked steeply, and I heard the air being forced through his wings in a continuous rippling sound as he dove and again landed on Duane’s shoulder, fluffed out and shook. He was feeling great. Duane continued to sip his coffee, and continued the conversation.

“You are just about the most beautiful thing under the sun,” he said, caressing Merlin’s head feathers.

“Mm.”

Duane and Susan raised Merlin from his pinfeathery fledgling stage, when young ravens have been described as some “grotesque miniature gargoyles.” He is their only “child,” and he receives considerably more daily attention than most children of even a one-child family.

Merlin ignored me totally, and he would continue to do so for the rest of the week. He pecked lightly at my hand if I intruded it near his face. When I brought my hand near him a second time, he emitted a growl, fluffed his feathers, and pecked much harder. I did not dare to try it a third time. He is bonded most strongly to Duane. If given a choice, he spends his time with no other human. If Duane is gone, he approaches Susan. Other members of the family whom he has known for years are not approached.

His memory for individual people seems to be indelible. When Duane and Susan were away for six months, Merlin stayed with Duane’s brother, whom he already knew and accepted. When they came back, his reaction to Duane was instant and strong. “He bolted from Charles to my shoulder instantly, as if I’d never left. Then he stayed on me like a burr the rest of the day. On that day, he also became unusually aggressive, showing his dominance through feather posture. He drove off the magpies, chased the vultures and a Cooper’s hawk. Was he trying to reestablish his worthiness as a mate?”

Duane’s observations not only attest to the bird’s long-term memory, but also address his fidelity. If he distinguishes and remembers individuals of another species as well as he does, it stands to reason that ravens in the wild recognize members of their
own
species at least
as well, and bond to them as long and as strongly. How well could
we
distinguish one raven from another and infallibly remember them?

Charles served bacon and eggs, which we ate under the live oak trees. Merlin perched on Duane. He was picky, eating only in small bites. He may already have fed from his staple, the canned dog food always available in his jail. He does not cache surplus food because he rarely needs food for a “rainy day,” as do wild ravens. Perhaps that is because there never has been a “rainy day” in his life; food is never an issue—it is always available. No great effort needs to be spent where it is not needed. Nevertheless, crediting him with optimal efficiency in energy allocation may be premature—although Merlin rarely caches food he spends considerable time and effort caching such useless things as wood chips and other trinkets.

After spending a half hour or so on Duane’s shoulder, he hopped down to the ground to dig in the soil and to pick at wood chips and other debris. One nondescript four-inch wood chip in particular drew his attention. He tried to shove it into the sandy soil, succeeding only partially, then covered up the rest with debris scraped from the sides. He placed a leaf or two on top. Almost invariably, a small section of the chip still showed. He tried to tamp this part down by pecking it hard. As a result, the whole chip got uncovered, and the whole process was repeated. Then he dug a small trench nearby using alternate sideswipes of his partially open bill. He picked the chip up, laid it into the trench, and scraped the surrounding soil over it with his bill. Finished? No. Within two or three minutes, he was back to dig the chip up, and he then repeated the process in a similar manner with the same or some other chip.

Someone from the appreciatively watching audience offered him a strip of bacon. He flew off with it onto the ground of the nearby hillside, where a flock of about a dozen yellow-billed magpies immediately joined him. He made rasping-growling calls at them, then returned to us. The magpies then dug in the soil all around where he had been, perhaps searching for the cached bacon.

It was barely eleven o’clock, and the sun was blazing hot. Our caffeine levels were up to par, but the heat was already inducing some of
us to reach for a cool beer. Merlin, too, got offered a few sips of brew through a tipped flip-top can. A few sips was all he took, although on hot days he has been known to indulge in more than he should. He “gets a little unsteady on his legs and wings,” I was told.

We decided to take a half-mile walk through the hills to a springfed pond to catch a few largemouth bass for supper. Just as we were ready to leave, Merlin became uncharacteristically loath to follow Duane. Whenever we started to walk, he refused to budge from the roof of a junked car parked under the large live oak by the trailers. He just sat tight, holding up our little expedition as we waited for him. Duane thought Merlin knew we wanted him to come. He told me, “Whenever you want him to do something, he becomes suspicious and doesn’t do it. You have to be surreptitious, by acting nonchalant, as if you
don’t
want him to do it, before he
will
do it.” To get him to come when he didn’t want to would be a challenge. Duane wasn’t eager to leave him alone, because last year while Merlin was flying near camp, a golden eagle swooped unseen out of the sky from behind and grabbed him in midair. Duane saved him by erupting in a sudden and violent burst of yelling that induced the eagle to drop his intended prey. When Merlin fluttered to the ground he had blood on his feathers and in his mouth.