Ravens in Winter by Bernd Heinrich

I’ve had my copy of Ravens in Winter almost since it was published in 1989, and have only now got around to reading it. It always seemed mildly interesting, but not enough to move me to pick it up. I kept it around partly partly because of the handsome jacket—but after all, did I really want to read an entire book about ravens? And especially ravens in the winter? Once in a while, when I leafed through the book, it seemed to consist of descriptions of waiting around in the cold for ravens to feed at the slaughterhouse scraps and roadkill animals that the author had left out for them.

That proved to be an accurate impression. What’s more, Ravens in Winter is devoted to solving a single puzzle: why it is that ravens appear to share their food with others (at least some of the time) and even to call other ravens to the feast.

But as it turns out, Heinrich’s fascination with the ravens and with this puzzle is infectious. In writing that is evocative without being flashy, he conveys the pleasure of earning his observations and discoveries with the hard work of lugging hundred-pound sacks of meat or rising before dawn in a drafty cabin to climb a tree and wait for the first birds to arrive. 

January 5. It is near zero and snowing hard again this morning, but I’m as close to heaven as I think I’m ever going to get. The balsam fir branches are bent with glistening powdery snow. All sounds are muffled, except for those of forty or so ravens. The yelling and bickering in accompaniment to the constant rhythm of the pounding of their bills on the solidly frozen meat is music to my ears. The only “window” from my cabin this morning is through the 135-millimeter lens of my 35-millimeter camera. The sheep carcass thirty feet from the cabin is almost full frame, and on and surrounding it are the ravens.

I see the snowflakes on their glistening black backs. It is a beautiful sight. I am finally close to them, which until now had not seemed possible. The birds are totally at ease. After feeding, some roll on their backs in the snow like happy dogs or lie breast down, fluttering and kicking snow. Some slide on their breasts, pushing themselves forward with their legs. They are snow bathing, something I’ve seen no other bird do. It looks like young kids romping in the snow, and I’m sure they do it for the fun of it.