Quoth the raven

Drawing 521

Drawing 522

Drawing 523

Drawing 524

Drawing 525

I had another raven encounter yesterday. Returning to my car at the shopping strip, I had to duck two low flying ravens at about head height, one in hot pursuit of the other. I'd just shut the door when the lead raven returned for an ungainly landing on the roof of the car in front of me: he came in too fast, folded his wings early, and SCREEEEEEEEKed across the duco, talons out for braking, looking surprised at the lack of traction on the shiny paint. Once he came to a stop, he began to whack the hell out of something gripped in his beak, not sure what but there were bits of gore and flesh flying everywhere. If it wasn't dead when he landed, it was well and truly deceased after the first couple of whaps. Pause. The car's owner approached and came to an astonished eyelevel halt with Mr Raven. Both bird and human froze.

"Get off my car!" The raven fixed the car owner with a baleful glare, gave his prey a couple more whacks on the windscreen (already liberally smeared, and I suspect he also landed a couple of hits on the human), and leisurely flapped away. Hah!

Perhaps I really should take up studying birds.