This little lady has been visiting our compost pile all winter, and as with all my interactions with corvids has impressed me with how clever she’s been. My routine most mornings is to get home from milking at the dairy farm I’m working at for the winter, come inside make a fresh pot of coffee and then take out the compost. She seems to know that schedule now, and I can hear her tackling in the woods when I first get home, but she doesn’t make an appearance until I put the dog outside. I’m starting to think that the sound of the dogs collar jingling is her breakfast bell, because as soon as the dog jumps off the porch and starts running around in the snow the raven comes out of the woods into the same maple tree every morning watches the dog for a minute and then floats down to the compost pile to see what I’ve left her.
I think that being a competent outdoors person has a lot to do with paying attention to And remembering patterns. What types of wood benefit you most friction fire, where the best spot to harvest ramps is etc. I think that gets mirrored in the animal kingdom as well, and corvids are certainly some of the best at it, And have plenty to teach us about paying attention to little cues in the environment that inform your decisions.
