Dealing with the Mob by K.L.Kivi

The ravens were flying in from all directions, drawn by raucous squawking in the forest. From out on the Slocan Pool, idly bobbing in our canoe in the sunlight and pre-freshet current of the Kootenay River, the commotion seemed incongruent. What could possibly be the cause of such a conflagration? Each black bird that flew over bee-lined it to the spot on the hillslope in front of us with such a sense of determination, that it was clear that this was no simple Sunday corvid picnic. And each bird’s arrival upped the ante, indignation emphatic and volume pumped until the happening on the hill fully captivated us as well.

As we paddled into the bay below the hillslope, we kept our eyes on a clump of Douglas Firs a few hundred metres above. Every few minutes, the ravens would erupt in a frenzy of feathers, black sparks against the blue sky. I was already guessing at the motivation of the ravens when a deep hooting confirmed my suspicions: they were mobbing an owl. Hoooooo. Hoo-Hoo, Hooo. Hooo. From the throaty depth of the call and its pattern, I knew this was no mere Barred owl.

Mo and I looked at each other, obviously thinking the same thing: let’s go see. We landed and pulled the canoe up onto the fresh greenery that was sprouting there. I was about to examine the plants along the shore when the ravens erupted again, this time flying quickly to a neighbouring clump of evergreens.

The poor owl, I thought, but didn’t say it. Ravens mob owls for a reason.

We hesitated not because of what we might find but because the slope in front of us was so steep and gnarly with fallen limbs and trees. Plus, we were exhausted from a week of the hard physical labour spring inevitably demands. Still, we couldn’t resist the temptation of seeing the owl and ravens close up. We bushwhacked up slope until we stumbled on a well-trod deer trail. The trail zigzagged up, bringing us right to the clump of tall, girthy trees where the ravens had now been keeping up their raucous vigil for at least 20 minutes. The black birds were obvious to see, all motion and noise but we had to peer diligently into the trees, shifting our position a few times, before we finally spotted the large, buffy shape of the owl. A big one!

“It’s a Great horned owl!” Mo whispered. I trained my binoculars on it. I’d never seen a Great horned owl with such a bright rusty colour around its eyes and such distinctive black ear tufts and parentheses around its face. I was in the process of trying to convince myself that we founded something rare, like a Long-eared owl. It wasn’t.

The owl was sitting, seemingly fairly calmly, a foot from the fat trunk of the fir. Apart from the distinctive full swivel of its head as it kept an eye on us as well as the ravens in the branches around it, the big bird was still. This type of mobbing a is regular, perhaps even weekly occurrence in the life of a predatory bird. What did the Great horned owl make of it? Every few minutes, an individual raven would break free of the mob and actually fly at the owl who would fluff its feathers and shake, as if to discourage some pesky insect. Occasionally, it would give its series of low hoots. A quick look in my bird book revealed that they were fairly well matched in size and weight if not in weapons of claw and bill. The ravens, however, had the advantage of numbers.

My initial pity for the owl was subsiding as I thought about what the ravens were doing. I was assuming that their behaviour was an act of protecting their nestlings or even retaliation for a recent attack but was there something going on here that I couldn’t guess at? Is there such thing as raven principles? A code of behaviour that harkens to solidarity in the face of historic enemies? For example, if the ravens were social and environmental activists protesting a G8 summit, would I even pause to wonder how Stephen Harper or other world wrecking leaders were feeling?

We edged closer. Clearly, the owl was as concerned about our presence as it was about its familiar foes, the ravens. It swooped off its limb in a graceful arc into an adjacent clump of firs. The ravens followed. We went back down slope. By the time we were back out on the Slocan Pool, the mob was calming. Had they made their point? The owl continued to be owl, predatory bird of the forest and the ravens continued to be its potential prey. No one was injured in the making of this film.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the intra-species human analogy I made earlier. As much care is needed in animal-morphizing as in anthropomorphizing. Using animal behaviour to justify human interactions can occasionally lead those of interested in what is "natural" seriously off course sometimes. The conflict between ravens and owls is one based in survival. The conflicts between the military industrial consumer complex and the citizens of the world are a different story altogether.