What a day!

     Busy Busy Busy!!!  That's me alright.  Sorry I haven't been on to tell you my stories.  Working on a farm and being a single parent is a lot of work.  But I promise you I do have some George tales AND some brand new video.  But first I will tell you a story.
     It was a pretty exciting day.  I got to see George and Gracie today.  I even got a couple of seconds of video of Gracie this morning.  She and George kept taking turns to go the feeding station and bringing the food back to the nest.  I think the babies have started out of the nest.  They were traveling in a different direction this morning and were very very chatty.  So maybe the babies are able to explore now.  I will keep a sharp eye out!!!!
     I got to hang with George of a few minutes.  I set my camera up with him in view.  I swear he must hear the camera going.  Maybe he can see himself in the lens.  I have to edit that piece of video before I can show it to you, but wait til you see George react and look at the camera.
      I do have two very short videos to show you.  Yesterday I brought George out some food.  Now you know that George loves to pick on the Geese.  I was taping George and I caught the geese and George reacting to each other.  It is so funny.  You will have to watch the geese as George approaches and how George reacts to the geese as they go into their pen.  It is never boring on the farm.  I truly don't need a television when I have all sorts of drama, comedy, action, horror and a little sci fi right there at the farm

After I got this video things had calmed down quite a bit.  I stayed busy on the farm and at one point I saw George on a new perch.  I hadn't seen him use this post before.

He stayed here for quite a while.  He has been hanging around the farm more and more lately.  Its been fun to be walking in the field and all of a sudden hear the whoosh whoosh of some powerful wings go right over your head.  I'm waiting for him to all of a sudden land on my shoulder.  After I took these photos I guess he had to amuse himself.  See the pile of wood just behind George.  This is what he did at the pile.

Then he decided that he had played enough with the woodpile and left me.

The past couple of days George and Gracie have been switching on and off getting food and bringing back to the nest.  What is really cool about this next video is that I caught George in the act of stashing a couple pieces of pork chop that I had on the roof.  I haven't seen many videos of Raven's stashing food and if you notice you will see that at the end he actually catches me video taping him and then takes off.  He movements are subtle, but once you learn his moves you will see what I see.

Sorry about the end of that video I was trying to follow him through but lost track of him. 

 George also the other day had to keep moving around and around the farm because a crow was following him.  George would try to hide his food then either see or hear the crow.  George would panic and take his food and try to stash it somewhere else or fake it.  I have seen him fake stashing food within the past couple of days as well. That is something I haven't seen him do before until this spring.  Gracie has blessed us more and more.  She is still very timid, but she is sticking around a little bit more all the time.

Another thing George has had to contend with lately are all of the male Red Winged Blackbirds.  They have several nests around the farm and since George is such a great egg thief he has to contend with all of the males grabbing at his tail feathers, chasing him around in the air or dive bombing him while he is in his perch.  My goal is to capture it with on video or on a photograph.  I love having little challenges like this that I have set up for myself.  It keeps me thinking all the time.  And next week I'm going to start my colored egg study and see what colors George will or will not take.  So stay tuned!!!

Thanks for stopping by George: The Old Silo Raven!  George and I appreciate it!!!

I'm Being Followed!

     Yesterday was a quite day.  I decided to take the afternoon off from the farm and go fishing.  But I did do my chores and did some extra work around the farm before I left.  George was there before I even got out of my truck.  He flew around me.  Lately he has been playing shy.  I'm not sure why maybe he is getting camera shy.  So I have backed off on my interaction with to give him time to miss me.  Its paying off cause for the first time in a couple of days he landed in the birch tree and stayed with me for a few minutes.  I haven't figured out why he won't stay.  Part of me thinks its still a little to overwhelming for him, it might be Deegan or it could have been the combination of me, Deegan and Kathy talking to him all at once.  Now that I think about it in the animal world George could have seen us like he sees the geese.  They gather around the bottom of the shed when he lands on the roof and squawk at him to get him to leave.  Maybe that is what he thought we were telling to him to do.  Makes sense now.
     You see everything is a working progress when you work with animals.  You win some and you lose some, but you should never give up.  It keeps your mind healthy to think of all the possibilities instead of dwelling on negative issues.  Now that I know and figured out why George acted that way I can adjust the training.  Most times trainers will not take that step back to find out why the animal is acting differently.  All most all of the time it is the trainers fault and not the animals.  Most trainers thinks its the animals fault because things have been going so well they don't understand why the animals attitude changed.
     George right now is dealing with a lot of issues.  I tend to back off during this time of the year because of that reason.  If you think about it, what have I been writing about for the past week.  This week alone, I assume that there are babies, Turkey Vultures have invaded his territory and so have the crow and lets not forget the couple of days of where the humans were near the nest site working on the interstate.  George has had to deal with a number of things.  He is in high stress mode.
     Now that I know what is going on in George's life I can adjust my training.  That will not only show him that I had an AHA! moment but it will also show him that I respect him.  Respect and trust go a long way in any relationship.
     George did hang around the barn though.  We were working on cleaning up the paddock and the stalls.  He would circle the barn several times, again curious about what we were doing.  He also has a new favorite spot near the pond that is on the farm.  Lately he has been flying and landing near the pond. Maybe to get a drink or harass the geese.  He really enjoys doing that.  I haven't been able to observe him over there yet, but I will with patience.
     Yesterday for breakfast I fed him two pieces of beef liver, two eggs, hamburger rolls, two hot dogs and a baked potatoe with broccoli and cheese.  Yummy!!  How can you resist a meal like that!!  The only time thus far that I have noticed George taking something else before he takes his eggs is when I feed him beef liver.  If I place the liver and the egg next to each other like I did yesterday he will always take the liver first then the egg.  Other than that he always takes his eggs first.
     OH my goodness!  I just thought of this brilliant idea.  I wonder if George would take an egg that has been colored.  HA! I just created another project to work on.  I can decorate them the same way I would Easter eggs!!!  Then I can see what color he likes or if he likes them colored at all.  Isn't that something.  I can't wait to try this experiment.  I will only use food coloring so as not to harm George.  And if he doesn't it eat then I will just break it open and cut it up for him.  He eats hard boiled eggs as well.  I'm so excited! I don't think there has ever been an experiment like this one. I can take video and everything!  I'm tingling all over!!!!
     One other thing happened yesterday that I almost forgot to mention.  After I got done at the farm I went into town and did some errands, got my fishing licence, went home got my gear and headed to go fishing.  I started on the River Road in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.  That road is right next to the Passumspic river and the Passumspic river heads south to the Connecticut River in Barnet, Vermont.
     I started in St. Johnsbury and worked my way down to the town of Passumpsic and then was going to stop at a fishing access, but it was all full.  So I figured I would try my luck in East Barnet.  I took the back way to go to East Barnet which is going right past the farm.
    I was going slow cause I was also looking for wildlife and interesting things to photograph.  I got to the farm and stopped at the top of the hill so I could observe the landscape and see where all the critters were.  When all of a sudden WHOOSH! There goes George right in front of my windshield and landing in the tree right above me.  I rolled down my window and was giggling.  I think he likes my giggle cause he always tilts his head to listen.  "Hello George, Hows my pretty boy doing?"  He clapped his beak a couple of times and then he flew off.
     I was very happy to see him and that he has recognized my truck.  The cool part is coming up though.  As I was going down the road something caught my eye and there flying next to me was George.  Then he would veer off and then I would be down the road a little farther and Theres George!  That crazy bird followed me all the way down to East Barnet which is about 2 miles away from the farm.  Once I got out of the truck he circled above me and clapped his beak.  I told him "Thank You." Because that is the proper thing to do and he started booking it back to the farm.
     How amazing is that.  I can't wait to see what he does this year when we start riding in the mountains.

     Thanks for stopping by George: The Old Silo Raven! George and I appreciate it!

   

George and the Goose

     Since its the weekend I  have not been able to go to the farm.  So I figured I have four years of stories to tell, so why not dip into the past on the weekends.
     This story happened a couple of months ago.  It was so funny that I have not forgotten it and is just another great example of how intelligent ravens are and how much of a sense of humor George has for a bird.
     We give George our left overs and food that is starting to go bad.  We feed him any type of meats we have, it doesn't matter what it is.  If it is starting to go bad we feed it to him.  We also have experimented with George to see exactly what he likes to eat and what he doesn't like to eat.
     So far we have found that George will eat just about anything except the following, veggies, pork fried rice mostly.  One of George's favorite meals are my pasta dishes.  He loves meatballs, but he loves my spaghetti and this one dish of chicken alfredo that I made.
     One day before going to work I was looking in my fridge to see what I could donate in feeding George.  I had made some really yummy Chicken Alfredo with huge chucks of chicken in it.  It was really good.  But it had also been a couple of days so I decided that George could have it.
     I brought it down to the farm and got ready to bring horses their medicine and do my usual routine.  Deegan and I headed out the door and down to the barn.  I put George's food on the roof like I always do, called him and went about my business.  I then went back in the house took my spot in front of the window to observe and watch to see if George would eat the chicken alfredo.
     It didn't take long for George to get there.  The Geese got really noisy cause they are not to fond of George.  George used to steal their eggs during the spring and summer.
     Once George got on top of the roof. The big male goose that I have named Jerkoff of obvious reasons began to harass poor George.  He was right underneath the angle of the roof, squawking and hissing like you wouldn't believe.  George just picked up his eggs and went about his merry way.

Eventually after George had eaten his eggs and whatever goodies he wanted he decided it was time to check out the new goodies that I had set out for him.  He would cock his head and take a real good look at. He would taste test a couple of noodles and then found the pieces of chicken.

Jerkoff was still right there underneath him, still hissing and squawking.  George looked down at the goose and cocked his head.  Apparently George thought maybe the goose wanted some of that yummy chicken alfredo cause George started swinging his beak around and tossing some down to the goose.  The noodles I used were round.  Each time George would swing his beak, the noodles would land on the ground or what was more funny they would land right on top of Jerkoff's head!!!!  Plunk, Plunk, Plunk and Jerkoff's head would bounce each time one hit him.  Then George would peak over the edge to see if the goose was eating it,  But he seemed more amused than anything!!!  It was so funny to watch George doing what he was doing.  I didn't get video or photos.  I wish I did.  I couldn't stop laughing!!!!  It reminded me of a cartoon!!!  

George did end up eating all of the chicken alfredo and even eventually picked up the ones that he has tossed down to Jerkoff. Waste not, want not.  So that is my funny George story. I wish you could have been there. You would no doubt still be laughing about it just like Kathy and I do everyday.

That is Jerkoff going after poor Deegan.  Jerkoff is one of the meanest most aggresive geese that I have ever come in contact with.  But I have been learning goose language so he is getting better to handle.  Its all about body language and tail ruffling.  

Thanks for stopping by George: The Old Silo Raven!!  George and I appreciat it!