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A RAVEN’S FAVOR

Common Raven Photo: Breanna Wilson

This article was written by Weaving Earth co-founder Will Scott for the California chapter of the National Audubon Society

Raven’s Favor

A Tale of Wild Communication: How a raven warned two hikers of a mama bear on their path.

Wild Communication

Communication within and amongst animal species is ubiquitous. The creatures of this world have a rich tapestry of modalities including sign language, dance, movement, mimicry, sonar, and vocal expressions of many kinds. 

I recall a time when I watched as the buzzing alarm of a Bewick’s Wren in a thicket caused a mule deer to stop grazing, look up and listen. After a pause, the deer turned from the sound and trotted away across the meadow. Within minutes, a coyote emerged into view from the place where the wren had alarmed. I can not confirm the cause and effect of these events for certain. However, through studying birds and the “language” they speak, I knew to pay attention when I heard the wren alarm. From what I could tell, the deer knew to do the same. 

I began learning and practicing Bird Language 15 years ago. Like many practices, there is no end-goal when it comes to Bird Language — rather, it is an ever-deepening pathway of awareness and connection. After logging thousands of hours with the practice, the terrain only seems to open further.

Communication within a single species is something that many of us may be able to wrap our heads around. But interspecies communication is perhaps a bit more mysterious. Yet for many peoples the world over (as well as many of our more-than-human kin), the reality of interspecies communication is commonplace and essential — a natural part of daily life and relationship to place. 

A growing body of scientific research is now catching on: In West Africa, one species of monkey has been shown to understand detailed information about the presence of predators from a different monkey species’ alarm calls (Zuberbühler, 2000). Lemurs in Madagascar have been found to do the same (Oda and Masataka, 1996). Even bacteria are proven to communicate within and between species (Federle and Bassler, 2003). Some scholars have gone as far as to suggest that “through the gestural and sensory, all bodies can speak without words” (Galbraith, 2009). Perhaps many of us can relate to the example of reading the body language or specific vocalization of a familiar dog or cat.

Yes, we humans are animals too and are participants in this wordless exchange, whether we know it or not. Fluency in this wild communication system lives in our bodies, and as the species responsible for such devastating impact on our shared biosphere, I think we owe it to our wild neighbors to slow down and tune in. Doing so can increase awareness, empathy, understanding, and care for our wild kin, which in turn leads to responsible action towards conservation and stewardship.

Songbirds have evolved acute listening and vocalization as a key part of their survival strategy, making them great teachers of intraspecies and interspecies communication. Acknowledging a food source, signifying territory, attracting a mate, coordinating within a flock, and sounding the alarm when danger comes are all critical in the life-cycle of a songbird — and all rely on communication. 

And, these teachers are all around us! Whether in a city, suburb, or rural area, the desert, mountains, or seaside, birds and bird communications can be observed in our daily lives. For many, their conversations are hidden in plain view, chatting and buzzing all around us with no discernable order to it. Yet with practice, time, and attention (plus a bit of guidance), the patterns of this original Twitter feed begin to emerge. What they can reveal goes well beyond seeing the coyote emerge from the thicket — it can influence and change the entire way one moves through the world. 

Common Raven Photo: Jeanette Tasey

A Raven’s Favor

Years ago, my partner and I had the privilege to spend a week backpacking in a little-known part of northern California — a region nestled amidst the intersecting territories of the Northern Yukian, Yuki, and Wailaki indigenous peoples. It’s a steep, mountainous place, densely wooded by firs and pines on all but the south-facing slopes, which are populated by oaks, grasses, and tight pockets of manzanita. For decades, the region’s trails have been primarily maintained by the broad footfalls of the local black bear population. It’s a wild corner of the state, where the deep, winding river beds serve as the most reliable routes of orientation and travel.

It was late May – a glorious time to be out there. So in addition to the gratitude we felt for the opportunity to be out in such a wild place, we were also grateful for the gift of gentle weather, and blooms of dogwood, iris, and lupine. We followed an old trail down to the riverbed, where we made our camp. The river was cold, serpentine green, and swollen from the recent rains and still-melting snow higher up. This made for quick dips in the heat of the day and difficult river crossings in the narrower canyons. Still, following the river was the best and easiest way to get a good walk in, and after a couple of days close to camp, we were ready for a big hike. 

We set out in the morning on a well-worn bear trail that rose from the canyon, contouring upriver. With the exception of a few tunnels through thickets of ceanothus or manzanita, the bears had created an easeful path. Bears are plentiful out there — in some places, ancestral use of the same route has worn “bear stairs” into hillsides, each footfall clearly laid into the slope, covered with a varnish of old leaves and duff flattened and smoothed by the lumbering paws of generations of bears. We were happy to be following their way.

Far up the canyon, we dropped off the bear trail and joined the tracks of the deer — bounding down a grassy slope back towards the river. After a cold dip and a rest, we scrambled up and found ourselves on a grassy shelf heading back towards camp.

It was on this shelf that it happened. We came over a small hill and saw a big tawny black bear not 50 yards ahead of us (despite the name, black bears are not always black). We stopped moving. There was a steep drop down to the river on one side and a steep rise into the forest on the other. The bear caught wind of us quickly, turned, and ran away along the narrow shelf downriver, leaving us feeling lucky to have had such an awesome sighting. 

We continued along the shelf in the direction the bear had gone, but not five steps in we were stopped in our tracks by the loud voice of a raven. We had been keeping a list of bird species we’d encountered on the trip, and we had yet to see a raven — a noticeable absence — so we were excited. We held our pause when we noticed that this raven was behaving very purposefully: Circling around a mid-sized fir tree just ahead and making a loud racket. The short, rhythmic vocalizations were reminiscent of raven alarm calls I had heard before, but the tone was much higher and the pace faster. What was happening?

The study of bird language relies heavily on pattern recognition. Having a felt sense of a pattern in nature also gives you a sense of when the pattern breaks. This raven’s behavior struck me as out of the ordinary, a break in the pattern. We waited and watched the raven fly tight rings around the top of the fir tree, calling loudly all the while. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the raven was gone, leaving the scene quiet, and us wondering what the racket had been all about. 

In that moment of quiet, we noticed something move high on the thin trunk of the fir the raven had been circling. Recognizing that it was a baby bear, we suddenly realized what had happened: When startled, it’s a common protective strategy for a baby bear to go up a tree as the mom runs away. In such a situation, the mother bear does not go far — she will circle back quickly to protect and collect her young. Had we failed to pause with the Raven’s warning and continued to walk along that shelf, we would have passed directly beneath the tree with the baby bear in it, and the mother nearby. 

By noticing the raven, and then noticing what the raven seemed to be noticing, we were deterred from a potentially dangerous encounter — and momma bear was certainly spared from further undue stress. The winged mystery of the raven has had my deepest thanks ever since.

At its core, bird language is about interrelationship and communication — within and across species lines. I don’t know why that raven decided to show up and alarm around that tree at the moment it did. Maybe to protect the baby bear? Maybe to protect us? Maybe to alert other ravens? What I do know is that the raven’s action felt purposeful and important. Thinking back, the impulse to stop in our tracks when we noticed the raven came from more than intrigue and pattern recognition. It came from a place in our guts as well; a bodily impulse that said “wait — something is happening here that needs your attention.” That’s wild communication at a deep, simple, and accessible level.

I’m thankful for the years I had spent paying attention to ravens — which is to say, building relationships with them. And, I am left wondering what subtler cues must have come before the raven’s loud, attention-grabbing alarm? Had that raven come overhead long before we got to the bear and her cub, and we just didn’t notice? Were the ground squirrels, chickadees, and juncos talking quietly about the bears too? Likely yes. Perhaps next time, I’ll recognize the shift in pattern early enough to give (and receive) the gift of seeing the mama bear and her cub leisurely walking up the trail ahead of us. 

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