It is the end of the year, and the shortest of days. Not something to crow about. I recently watched the two juvenile Ravens that hatched in Lincoln Park this past summer, calling incessantly, and following each other devotedly, as they have for the past six months.
The change of seasons that we know so well is new to them – I wonder what they think when it’s dark at 4:20.
Lincoln Park has not seen juvenile Ravens in decades. Their recent appearance in Seattle is due to the combination of a persistent species living in nearby wilderness and the attractiveness of a newly maturing city forest. It has taken that long since Seattle was logged off, a hundred years ago, for a few of our protected park lands to get back to a mature state.
Let’s make sure it stays that way. And that it grows, just as our days will surely lengthen.
More pictures of the Raven Family at Lincoln Park:
Seattle Nature Alliance 
Thank you for sharing this, Mark. Ravens are such clever birds!
I remember seeing my first ravens in Alaska. They made me laugh. They were like super-duper giant crows with really good diction. They don’t squawk or rasp. They very clearly say, ‘caw’. As in, “ James, please being the caw around, we want to go to Westchester.”
I stopped and watched them constantly. I mentioned what a big kick I got out of them to the audience at a presentation I was giving. A man spoke up and very dryly said, ‘Tell that to my dog. When I go to work they turnover his water dish, steal his food and drop rocks on him.”