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The Wilson Bulliten (Fred M. Jones) - April 11, 1933

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/02-2008/msg00056.html

The Wilson Bulletin
 December, 1933
 by Fred M. Jones
Independence, Va

Nesting of the Northern Raven in Virginia. -- The Northern Raven (Cor-vus corax principalis) was once found along all the higher mountain ranges of southwest Virginia, but is now almost a bird of the past with us, and the few that remain are confined to a small section of the Clinch Mountains and the area of the White Top Mountain and adjacent territory. Except in a general way there is not much to be found about the nesting habits of the raven in the various bird books. The best accounts are to be found in Life Histories of North American Birds, by Major Bendire (1895), but even those apply mostly to the West. However, most of the data given on the ravens of the West seem to be characteristic of the birds we have here, with a few exceptions. For the past few years I have made a special effort to get some nesting data on the ravens of this part of the state, and have been fortunate in finding a number of nests with both eggs and young. As there does not seem to be a published account of a raven's nest from this state, I will describe one which is typical of the majority that I have examined. Here they do not build on flat rock ledges, such as the Duck Hawk uses, but make the nest back in a pocket of a steep rock cliff, protected above with an over-hang.

On April 11, 1933, while hunting by myself for a nest of the raven on the north side of White Top, I saw a raven fly out from the cliffs, and in rounding a corner of the ledge that I was on, I could see the white-washed rocks and the nest about forty feet above me. I had some rope, but there was no way of reaching the nest from above on account of the wide over-hang, so I cut a spruce pole and climbed up to a crevice and pulled the pole up, finally reaching the nest in this manner. It was situated in a down-slanting pocket, too steep to stand on, and was nicely made of sticks, with a thick, smoothly finished lining composed of about equal parts of sheep's wool and Spanish moss, with a little buffalo hair. The exterior was twenty-four inches wide by eighteen inches deep, and the inside measured ten by five inches.

The four eggs which the nest contained were brought down in my binocular case, and on later examination they all proved to be decomposed, which was accounted for by seeing where some cat hunter had built a fire close to the nesting cliffs. The embryos were well formed in all of the eggs previous to their decomposition, so while no accurate nesting date can be given, the eggs must have been laid about the middle of March. They were smaller than the average eggs for this species, and were rather sharply pointed. They measured as follows: 1.94x1.24, 1.93x1.24, 1.86x1.23, and 1.83x1.23. For the hour that it took me to reach the ground after my examination of the nest none of the ravens were seen or heard, but while putting on my boots one of them alighted in a red spruce close by, shortly followed by another. They made a considerable racket until I walked on, a ledge in sight of them, when they both left in a hurry, occasionally diving sideways in the air, all the time voicing their protests. Flying in the direction of Cabin Ridge, they were seen no more.

Like the nests of the Duck Hawk, the rocks all around the ravens' nests are well white-washed, even when they are just building. They are very erratic in their nesting and two nests found while being built last summer were completed this season and occupied. Two nests with young, one found in April and the other in July, indicate irregular nesting dates. Whether all the eggs hatch or not as a usual thing is to be questioned, for three nests with young coming under my notice contained only two each. They are nearly always seen in pairs, except in late summer when the young of that season stay with the two old birds until nesting time the following year. The Crows fight them just the same as they do hawks, but the ravens seem to be able to hold their own very well and usually the Crows are the ones to leave the field of battle, sometimes minus a lot of feathers. -- F. M. JONES, Independence, Va.

This entry was posted on March 4th, 2008 at 12:24:56 pm and is filed under 1930s. Tags: clinch moutnain, eggs, fred m. jones, nests, northern raven, white top mountain