Christmas day brought a present I had not expected, not from Santa but a female raven I have befriended over the years. The raven I call Molly introduced me to her offspring as my Yule-tide surprise.
Birds had been off the radar during the Christmas build-up as I rushed about town doing the last of the holiday shopping. And on Christmas morning I did not pay much attention to an unusual raven call I heard coming from my garden’s exotic wattles.
It was an insistent, high-pitched caw repeated every few seconds and when I finally went to investigate, I found a juvenile raven begging his mother for some of the bacon rind I had tossed on the lawn for her. Another juvenile raven was half hidden in the wattles.
Molly had not been coming to my home in recent months. In autumn and winter he arrives virtually on call at about 9am each day and I presumed that in spring and summer there was so much food about in fecund garden environments that she did not need to rely on my handouts.
Although I believed she might have a nest somewhere in the high peppermint gums which fringe the garden, she had never introduced me to her mate.
I’m happy for Molly because when she first arrived about three years ago she did indeed come with a partner, and they perched together on the rails of my balcony to both demand a daily hand-out of cheese or any leftovers from meals the previous evening.
Seen together I could identify male and female simply because one, the female, was slightly smaller in size and the bird I was to call Molly had a distinctive white feather in their wings. But then the male vanished and Molly came calling on her own, presenting a lonely and forlorn figure each morning.
Unlike the male, she seemed unable to discern that if she called I would become aware of her presence, and thus give her food. Instead she merely perched on the balcony and if she could not see me inside the house would change her position to the roof of a neighbouring house hoping I would see her there, which I invariably did. Sometimes if she called I’d answer back but the two-way conversation never cemented as it did with her previous partner.
I was beginning to think that Molly was a bird brain not realising the association between call and response but I am now thinking her silence, her not drawing attention to her presence, was learned behaviour from a bitter experience which had befallen her and her partner.
Did her mate call at another home for food, perhaps one of the properties with chicken coops that have sprung up in our valley in recent years, and not receive the same friendly welcome? Ravens are not protected under Tasmanian law and are killed at will, even in the suburbs.
With her youngsters’ incessant calling, Molly has now started making a musical “caw” herself from my roof and may the music continue throughout 2019.