Thursday, March 6, 2008

Four Ravens born in the Winter

I received an email this week alerting me to a sighting of an active Raven nest close to St.Pauls Hospital here in the city.
Once at the site , we could see the nest about three quarters of the way up a tall Spruce tree.
At first it was unclear how many young were at the nest, but on further inspection , 4 healthy fledglings were counted.
Interestingly, the parent birds were already constructing a second nest under the existing one ! I don't know if they expect to have more young or are just adding an extension :-)
This is a very early record for breeding of this species in Saskatchewan. , 2 months earlier than a previous record.
Apparently the eggs hatched sometime in mid-January , so those Ravens were incubating eggs in some pretty horrible weather.
From my only decent vantage point , the Sun was glaring right at me , and the reflection bouncing back off a glass window didn't help matters , so photo opportunities were pretty dismal. At least you can make out the four young . One of them is pretty well fed as you can see . Both parents were keeping watch on the roof of a nearby building.

4 comments:

Clare said...

My favourite bird, in large part because they are the only bird I get to see for a large part of the year here in the High Arctic. Now I can't wait for the screaming fledglings to be hanging out near the House in the late summer.

Nick S said...

Its nice that you have something that stays around way up there :-)

Clare said...

I'm hosting a bird(ing) carnival, I and The Bird, in a couple of weeks. Do you mind if I include this post? Or another of your choosing?

Nick S said...

Please feel free to use whatever you like at the carnival. You have my permission.