Ben Cruachan Blog

Coming to you this time from Amila in Sri Lanka, be sure to visit.

I always imagined that was an Aussie saying, the old timers used it enough, but a little research soon shows that it was an old English saying originating from the job of bird scaring. Children were often employed for this work, and were paid the princely sum of about one shilling per week, but I digress. According to my bird book Australia has five native corvids, two crows and three ravens, but until I became a bit more bird savvy, I, along with most of the general public I guess, just called our local three ravens crows. I’m referring of course to the Australian, the Little, and the Forest Ravens. I also imagine that most people only notice them casually, as drab black birds pecking at a road kill, or flying over giving their harsh calls.
There’s a lot more to them than this however, and when I became interested in birds to a greater degree I came to appreciate them. When a paddock has been ploughed, you can often see large numbers of ravens feeding on the turned earth, in company with Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, quite a contrast. The cockies are feeding on onion grass corms, the ravens probably on scarab beetle larvae. They’re intelligent too, once when the children were small we took them up to the snow for the day. At lunch time there was a raven and a Pied Currawong watching and waiting for the chance to grab a morsel, I don’t know if it was an Australian or a Little Raven, but that doesn’t matter. We had a sliced sandwich loaf with us, and tossed them the occasional slice, the raven invariably beat the currawong, but the interesting thing was what it did with it. To make it easier to fly with, it deftly folded each slice over, gripped the double edge, and flew up to a perch to eat, very neat.
Ravens are extremely handsome birds too, whatever some people may think. On a trip to Wilson’s Promontory we stopped at a clearing beside Tidal River where we were joined by two or three ravens which I think may have been Forest Ravens. The glossy purple sheen on their feathers was simply stunning, something neither of us could ever forget. I photographed this Little Raven at Lake Guyatt the other day, it also has a hint of purple in its plumage, not nearly as striking as the Tidal River birds, but it’s still a handsome bird.

Last season we had a pair of Little Ravens nest in one of our trees, they successfully raised two young, and since then they haven’t been far away, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them repeat the event next spring. We’ve got very used to them being around, they’ve become part of our avian family.

A flash of azure
disappearing round the bend
to a favoured perch.

It’s a different world out there at night time, and until I started mothing I didn’t realise how different. I’ve been amazed by the number of different moths that have come into the light set up on our front verandah. Many of them are quite tattered and worn, something that shows up in the photographs I take of them, but occasionally one in pristine condition comes in. The other night was one of few moths, but this perfect individual flew in and settled on the brick wall, if I’m right it’s a Fisera, species eribola.