ravens in Midland county

SQUAAARRRK! SQUAAARRRK! A Chihuahuan raven sat on the crosspiece of the powerline pole, peering down at me, laughing at me as I struggled with the lugnuts of a flat tire. "Blankety-blank hydraulic wrenches!" I yelled at the big black corvid. He cocked his head, winking an intelligent eye, and shook his back to zip up the barbels of the feathers. The cold north wind lifted a few neck feathers and a patch of white underfeathers blinked.

On the shortgrass of the western reaches of the Llano Estacado, the intermontane basins of the Chihuahuan desert, and on the plains of the Pecos River Valley Chihuahuan ravens are ubiquitous. A highway traveler often sees a pair every few miles, patrolling for roadkill, the most obvious large bird on the bleak terrain. Native Americans in the northwest have thousands of stories starring Raven, a trickster figure mirrored in the southwest by stories of Coyote. For Yaqui sorcerers in northwestern Mexico, Raven is an ally and familiar. I like them, too, especially specifically Chihuahuan ravens.

Chihuahuan ravens are found in the Chihuahuan desert, as well as the Llano Estacado and the Stockton Plateau (which is the arid western extension of the Edwards Plateau.) They are smaller than Common Ravens, found in the mountains of the Chihuahuan desert and elsewhere in North America where conifers are predominant, and bigger than Common Crows, which only come as far south as Lubbock and Seymour.

For 50 years, back when Midland had an open pit trash dump near Cole Park, thousands would gather every winter, trying to teach us humans the philosophy of recycling. Every winter night in those years they roosted on the ground where the Hobby Lobby is now, in the lee of a fencerow sanddune. When the dump closed they dispersed, but for another decade smaller winter roosts were located on the highlines where Home Depot is now. As far as I know, the winter roosts are things of the past. In the space of two generations the population changed their habits again, returning to doing as they did in the buffalo prairie days, remaining on their home territories year around.

In March take a drive up the Telephone Road, and when you find some ravens park, set out a lawn chair, have a picnic, and enjoy a most amazing show. The courtship flights of Chihuahuan ravens are spectacular exhibitions of aerial virtuosity. The flight begins with a chase. Diving, banking, looping, first one then the other takes the lead. They climb higher in the sky, doing loops together, then tumbling in a free fall to catch themselves and soar higher. During the climb they come together and clasp talons and roll over, then break apart to fly upside down, and then separately sail in ever increasing circles downward to land together on deadman corner posts on the fence line.

Nests are built in mesquites, hackberries, and on the crosspieces of electric line poles. They often use old nests, adding a few sticks, some rabbit fur for comfort, and a little bit of wire to help bind it together. One nest in New Mexico consisted entirely of barbed wire. One nest I saw had 7 types of wire, sticks of 5 species of shrubs, 3 different thicknesses of cordage, and strips of burlap feedsacks for the interior lining.

Ravens are collectors. A number of writers have told stories of pet ravens (it is illegal to keep pet ravens today) hoarding shiny objects, pebbles, car keys, writing pens, and more. They also will store food, hiding hunks of meat under a clump of grass or a yucca rosette. The collecting and hoarding are representative of their intelligence. One researcher hung meat on a string from a tree branch, and ravens quickly figured out how to pull the string up, stand on the loop, pull the string up some more, again stand on the loop and pull again, until the meat was reachable.

Ravens and coyotes help each other out. Ravens come to feed on the leavings of a coyote kill, of course, even following a hunting coyote in hopes of grabbing a few fresh scraps. A number of observers and researchers, however, have noticed that ravens seem to find prey for coyotes, circling and squawking until the curiosity of a pack of coyotes is aroused and brings them running to attack the injured or sick pronghorn or deer or lamb or calf.

Stockmen and farmers often are in adversarial opposition to ravens, assuming their carrion eating ways are indicative of being predatory. Local pecan growers have done battle with ravens when the birds process fallen pecans before the orchardist. In times past in some people the adversarial attitude developed into hate, and now the non-farming descendants of these individuals drive the roads shooting every raven (and every hawk for similar reasons.)

At least once a month local birders traipsing the county and farm-to-market roads will discover five to fifteen dead ravens and raptors, sometimes even hung from the fence lines as macabre trophies. The few individuals that "go varmint hunting" and illegally discharge firearms along public right-of-ways also dump their beer cans, whiskey bottles, fast food containers, lit cigarettes that start grass fires, porno magazines and their own excreta along the roads as well. The days of these scuzzballs are numbered, however, because we amateur naturalists have cell phones nowadays and DPS troopers will come in a heartbeat when told of illegal gunplay.