The race to embrace pets to ward off isolation during the Coronavirus crisis had me not looking at dogs and cats but a reliable favourite during times of stress – a female forest raven I call Gloria.
Gloria was not about when the pandemic struck but she soon learned that I was spending more time at home than usual. She began to sit on the roof, cawing loudly in the early morning as soon as she detected movement inside the house.
I was pleased to see her.
During the past few years Gloria has arrived daily at my home during the late autumn and winter months. She comes more frequently at this time of year because there are less rich pickings to be had than in summer in the woods surrounding the Waterworks Valley in Dynnyrne where I live.
In spring and summer her visits are usually confined to Saturdays only. Dead on cue at 9 am, Gloria turns up to demand a feed of bacon rind. It is the only day of the week we cook a traditional breakfast and I still marvel at how this fact has been so cemented in raven memory that it has become a part of Gloria’s routine. Her calendar and clock are so perfectly timed she does not come at any other time, on any other day for half of the year.
Members of the crow family, which includes ravens, and several species of parrot have been found by researchers to be some of the most intelligent creatures on the planet, with powers of cognition to rival that of the great apes. But this doesn’t explain their inbuilt clock.
As I said, Gloria’s visits become more frequent at the time of the autumnal equinox or, on my calendar, the day the clocks go back.
It all means that Gloria arrives very early in the morning, as the sun begins to poke through my bedroom window, but I don’t mind getting out of bed to raid the fridge for her staple – big chunks of cheddar cheese – when we are not cooking bacon and eggs on a Saturday.
Gloria has been in my thoughts in recent months after I read of a motorist in a rural district going to the aid of a lamb being attacked by a flock of ravens.
I have learned when I talk of my love of ravens – in this column and outside of it – that Tasmanians can be divided into one of two categories regarding what are more commonly called “crows” in the state. Tasmanians either love or hate them.
It is all down to the crow’s attacking livestock and in some cases being accused of pecking out the eyes of dying lambs and sheep.
I am sure it happens – perhaps less frequently than we suppose – but I admire ravens all the same. And I am sure my COVID-19 pet Gloria would never do such a thing.