The Raven’s Kiss

It was the most unexpected place for a raven encounter.

These are the most private of birds and prefer places away from people. So, it didn’t even cross my mind that the crow I was cooing over at one of the busiest tourist sites in Donegal was in fact a raven.

Once Jason pointed this out, I was raven putty.

We have a pair of ravens nesting on the edge of the West Pennine Moors about a mile from our home. Our bedroom window looks out towards their romping ground. I usually struggle to spot them in flight as I walk the moors, as they look so similar to crows.

But when they call their haunting croak, that is how I know a raven is close by. I usually hear them before I see them.

They have been following us around our holiday in Ireland these past two weeks, or rather we have been following them. Their constant presence has validated to us that Ireland is considerably less populated than England.

Everywhere we have camped, or visited, there have been a pair of ravens overhead. In Galway they were nesting in the trees in the field across from our camping field. Two flew over our new camping spot in Donegal, which is overlooking the sea, as we were putting up our tent.

I am not one for busy destinations, but this is our first trip to Ireland and so we are very much finding our way. The badge of being the tallest accessible cliffs in Europe was enough to pull us to this tourist hive along with probably every other sightseer in south Donegal.

I have a poorly ankle at the moment. I slipped on the day of the Summer Solstice walking down a steep bank to a waterfall and twisted it. It got better in the normal fashion until I decided to enter the adult race at Jason’s grandson’s sports day. My competitive edge got the better of me, and I pushed myself too far in all the excitement, and it hasn’t healed since. So, this holiday has very much been a sitting down one.

I am a big believer that I get stilled for a reason. So whereas normally we would be walking the cliffs, all I could do was walk to the viewpoint which was crowded with people who couldn’t get beyond taking selfies of themselves, and then make my way back to Little Red Van, which we had parked right at the top next to the ice cream van and lobster roll stall.

I saw my raven straight away sitting on a rock trying to catch two people’s attention. He was staring at them, carefully selected as they were eating lobster rolls. He cocked his head at them, and they took out their phones and grabbed some shots. He cocked his head again, and

I felt the whole thing was rather unfair. He was posing for the photos but getting nothing in return. Seeing my concern, an American lady offered me some of her ‘potato chips’ to give him, also sharing the sadness of the situation.

It was then that the idea struck me.

I had two sausages in the van which we had cooked up that morning as sneaky snacks to eat through the day. Jason had snaffled his as lunch time, but I was saving mine for later in the day, as I can be susceptible to the 'sausage snooze effect' if they have a wheat content, which these did.

So, armed with my sausages I went to feed the crow. At which point Jason pointed out this wasn’t a crow. This was a raven.

My heart skipped a beat.

A raven! How could I be this close to a raven?

Would he eat from my hand I wondered? So, I threw him a few pieces of sausage and then moved closer. There was a dance between us, as I stretched forward as far as I could, and he hopped to a place where he felt the safest and lent forward to meet me. Beak to finger, and there I had it. A raven had touched me, and I had touched a raven.

The adrenaline was pumping through me, as I reached for more sausage meat to pass to him…

… and so went on the dance.

Jason by this stage had grabbed his camera kit from the van. Another blessing for my bad ankle, as we wouldn’t have brought his big camera kit up if we had walked.

Behind us an audience was amassing, as folk turned their backs on the cliffs and we became the spectacle. We became the tourist attraction, all with cameras to the ready.

For that moment I became Raven Whisperer. I could command my raven to wherever I wanted him to be, so Jason could get the best shots.

We moved from rock to rock, each time getting a little closer to each other and each time building up a little more trust.

I had almost as much to be wary of than him. That black beak looked fierce, and I could only imagine what it could do to my fingers combined with those sharp talons should I get off on the wrong foot with him. I was that close. I worried for my eyes the most, as I have heard stories of people being blinded through birds attacking their eyes in defence.

My raven would gather several pieces of sausage in his beak and then fly to a safe place just behind the fence where he would enjoy the treat.

Each time he flew back he grew to trust me a little more. I no longer had to stretch out to reach him. He relaxed as I relaxed. Our eyes locked in contact with each other, I was breathless with excitement. The adrenaline still pumping. The tourists had returned to their selfies, bored now as the novelty had worn off for them. But not me, and not Jason. To be this close to a raven was a very special thing. A once in a lifetime thing.

He was smart. Very smart. He knew that Jason had a role in this adventure, and we could see him looking at Jason to try and figure out what it was. He was sizing up Jason’s long camera lens and calculating why Jason and I were working as a team and to what end.

To be so close to a raven and read it's mind was a wonderful thing.

Then came the moment which I know we can all relate to. He had eaten all the sausage he possibly could fit in to his stomach.

So, he began to gather it in his beak. Collecting up small fragments piece by piece and holding them there. Jason wasn’t happy. He wanted raven shots without sausage beak.

The problem was solved as my raven took off and flew to a secret place in the cliffs. Here he stashed his sausage pieces and within a minute was back with me again for more. We had a routine going, where he would collect two or three pieces at a time from me and fly off to his hideaway place to deposit them and come back.

Our dance continued. He would fly in around me, spotting me from within the crowd which had amassed behind me again. I saw a man try to tempt him over to him with an apple core, but my sausage overruled.

Then I was nearly out of sausage. He had devoured one and three quarters from me, and I had just one quarter left. We were ready poised for the final round and catch the perfect raven photo.

But he never made that last flight to us. He began to behave differently, and oddly. We couldn’t figure out why exactly until later.

What he did was lie down in the grass just the other side of the fence, right on the cliff edge. He got down really low, so we could barely see him even though he was just ten metres away. We thought at first perhaps he was so full he needed a sausage snooze. We could relate to this! Then we wondered if he was wary of the children standing behind us, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking over towards the cliffs.

Then we saw her. The angry wife!

She came storming out from the cliffs towards me screeching. He shot up from his hiding place ready for a fight. There were raven cries in the air as they met in combat. I have never heard a noise like that coming from a raven. They swirled and scrapped in the air at great speed, flying inland. Talons stretched out to each other. Spinning upside down, grabbing onto each other in flight, squabbling all the way.

A third raven then flew in to join them, croaking in that raven familiar way. It was their child, coming over to try and break up the row. It didn’t work, and we watched Mr and Mrs fly off into the distance fighting out their raven quarrel, storming through the sky.

We watched them fly over the distant hill tops out of sight.

He never came back that afternoon. We waited around for a while and placed the remaining sausage pieces on the limestone rock for him.

Then we left, changed forever.

I have had several close encounters with wildlife like this. Each one has left an imprint in me, but never before have I had such a prolonged interaction and shared experience with an animal or bird. Normally they would see me and move on. But armed with two sausages this time I had new powers, the power to dance with ravens.

Never before have I been able to get inside the mind of a wild animal, ora pair of wild animals like this and glimpse into their world in such a way. To think that he hid the food from her. That he hid from her. That he could see her coming even though we couldn’t. That she got mad at him, and it seemed at us too. The aerial fight, and with such ferocity too. The child coming to intervene.

Was she mad at him for hiding the food and not sharing? What she mad at him for playing out with the people? Or staying away from her for so long?

To think that ravens get mad at each other and have a full-on argument like this.

For a moment we got to glimpse into their world, as our two worlds touched.

And the kiss? Well, there was one occasion where the sausage fell off my fingers and the raven pecked me. I am using my poetic licence to call that a kiss!

I was kissed by a raven.

About the Author

Nicola

Nicola Smalley is an edge-dweller, shamanic practitioner and writer living in Anglezarke on the edge of the West Pennine Moors in Lancashire, England.
Following a career in corporate sustainability, she now runs The Way of the Buzzard with her husband Jason. Her passion is anything connected to nature and the mysteries of the Earth.

It was the most unexpected place for a raven encounter.

It was then that the idea struck me.

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