Re: [Maine-birds] interesting Raven video

Thanks for the cool video! If one looks at the raven as it calls, the inside of the mouth is mostly pink. The roof of the mouth in corvids is a useful way to age them, but at least in ravens it may not be so simple. Bernd Heinrich, whose Maine connections most know, published a short note on reared ravens and found that some birds retained the pink mouth lining beyond their first year, with some young of the year beginning to get blacker mouths by November. Heinrich and co-author John Marzluff observed that two older ravens (22 months) were subordinate and unpaired birds. They suggested that the color change might be related to social dominance and bonding as much as age, although all young birds start out pink. Their paper is here: http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v094n02/p0549-p0550.pdf
The gurgling and babbling along with what seem to be attempts to imitated the crows calling in the background all fit a young bird engaging in vocal play, but older birds will do that too. The way this bird holds its head, low with fluffed throat and head feathers, is typical of subordinate birds. It also could be that the bird was saying mom never told me there'd be days like these, cold and crisp with winds to play on. Anything is possible with ravens.

Louis Bevier
Fairfield

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