Final Grand Canyon post - The raven

Ravens are amazing birds! 

Last night Barbara listened to a Park Ranger talk about ravens and learned some surprising facts. 

First, ravens look like blackbirds, but are a lot bigger.

Second, they are VERY smart, AND mischievous.  Here are some fun stories about ravens:

1.  Ravens love to eat and have been known actually to unzip backbacks to get at a snack!

2.  Ravens are sneaky.  The ranger reported that a hiker in the canyon was being harrassed by a raven when he was trying to prepare his dinner.  The raven kept approaching him, seemingly unafraid.  The hiker shooed him away, time and again.  Finally, he got so exasperated, he got up and chased him away.  When he left his food preparations, two ravens hovering in the branches nearby swooped down and picked up his food!  When he turned around, he found all three ravens enjoying his dinner on a ledge above him.

3.  Ravens are able to recognize human faces!  Scientists discovered this with an experiment.  They had two or three people deliberately harrass a raven in captivity by shooing it away, waving their arms at it, swiping at it with their hands, etc. 

Later, they brought back the harrassing human beings along with several other, innocent, people and put them all in the same space with the raven.  The raven took his revenge, but ONLY on those who had harrassed him, by pooping on them!  He left the others alone.

4.  Ravens can imitate sounds, including those of coyotes.  Ravens in the Grand Canyon have been observed to call out with a coyote sound whenever they see carrion (the body of a dead animal) on the ground.  The coyote cry by the raven alerts coyotes in the area and attracts them to the dead animal.  Ravens do this because they themselves actually want to eat the dead animal, but their beaks are not adequate for breaking open the carcass and exposing the flesh underneath to be eaten.  The coyotes, however, have their sharp teeth and they do the job.  After the coyotes have had their fill, the ravens swoop in to eat what's left over!  In this way, both the coyotes and the ravens benefit.

So, ravens are an amazingly intelligent bird.  Who would have thought?

Finally, here is a picture of sunset at the Grand Canyon last night.  The picture was taken only about 30 yards from our RV site which was close to the edge of the canyon.  What a campsite.

Today, we travelled to Monument Valley in southern Utah.  We're going to take a tour tomorrow.  Our campsite here is hemmed in by the great red rock formations of the canyon, another beautiful place to be staying.  And, it's warm!  At last.