Dearones,
I posted here three days ago in response to Carla's wonderful post relating
her experience with a hummingbird, sharing my own experience with a pair of
wild ravens. I'd like to add just a few thoughts to what I wrote then.
You know, that incident was doubly incredible considering how extremely
wary of humans that ravens are, and with reason. Oh, they are really slick!
I have so much respect for them. They are very special to me!
But this one seemed to know I would help. It willingly put itself in far
closer proximity to me than wild ravens normally do to humans. It
deliberately placed the life of its precious mate in my hands. Was that a
gamble on the part of the raven? I don't know, but it was a great gift to
me. My heart lifted with them as they made haste together, "gettin' outa
town."
Oh, btw, I "talk" to ravens -- learned it back in those years I spent so
much time in wilderness settings -- answer their calls. They often come in
close to investigate, looking for the "strange" new raven in the
neighborhood. They seem a little indignant sometimes to learn I have no
wings.
My wings are in my heart.
With Love,
Green
PS -- For the convenience of any who may have missed my story about "the
happy couple," I'm pasting it below:
+++++
I'd like to share an experience I had, Oh! This is twenty years ago now, but
just as clear in my mind and heart as if it were yesterday.
I love to spend time in wild nature, and there is little I Iove better than
leisurely exploration of wild mountain settings. On this particular day I
was way out in the mountains East of Eureka, California, outside the small
town of Orleans, on Red Cap Creek.
The narrow mountain roadway I was using was blocked by an ongoing logging
operation in which a yarder was set up in the road. A yarder is a kind of
mobile crane which retrieves logs by cable from the clearcut below and decks
them for loading onto trucks for transport to market. And though by law a
logging operation is supposed to unblock the roadway for passing public
traffic, it's a hassle for them and I saw no need to pass. I had parked
well beck from the operation and was moving on foot down the brushy edge of
an old clearcut when a raven approached me flying low, vocalizing, and
circling near me, "talking" and encouraging me to follow. It lead me along
the forest edge to a particular nearby location and then moved in very
close, with gutteral excited exclamation.
To my surprise, near the base of a clump of bushes at the forest edge,
utterly silent and unmoving on the ground, nestled another raven, eyeing me
steadily. To the cacophonous accompaniment of my newly-acquired escort, I
edged to within a few feet of the bird on the ground, and saw that it was
held by the tip of one toe in the steel jaws of a rusty leghold trap.
Moving slowly, love in my heart, the bird unresisting, I held its folded
wings to its body with both hands while I depressed the trap's spring with
my foot, releasing cruel steel jaws.
Standing with black beauty in my hands, looking into deep avian eyes,
appreciating irridescent purple sheen of delicately arranged plumage, with
the bird's excited mate circling fifteen feet above my head, I gently lofted
my charge into the air. It took easily to its wings, there was a brief
aerial embrace above my head, and in sudden and total silence the happy
couple made haste to absent themselves.
With deep satisfaction I penned a short note on a page of the pocket
notebook I always carry, ripped the page from its spiral binding, extracted
two one-dollar bills from my wallet, and stooped to leave them, folded
together with the note, in the trap's jaws.
The note read: "An otherwise uninjured raven was caught here by the toe.
Meaning no disrespect to you, and the raven being worth far more to me alive
and free than dead to you, I released it to the grateful company of its
mate."
With Love for ALL,
Green
