My Sidekicks!!!

     Today I had the funniest morning!  I took it fairly easy today.  I just wanted to enjoy the wonderful weather we are having here in Vermont.  I started out my morning like I usually do.  I got the medicine for Peaches ready then I went to the fridge and tried to figure out what to give George for his breakfast.  So I decided to give him a light breakfast.  If you have been following along then you know that I feed George more than what he would normally eat in the wild.  Part of this his training, the other part is feeding other critters, and figuring out what other birds like to eat.  For instance, Blue Jays and Starlings will eat other meat.  Like chicken, hamburger and pork chops.  If the pieces are small enough they will almost gorge themselves on the meat.  The only thing that George will not eat and this is such a typical kid thing to do.  George will not eat his veggies!  NO SIR!!!!  Keep those greens right off his feeding station by golly!!!  George will throw the greens right off the roof.  I have seen him do this with broccoli.  He likes to take the green beans in his mouth, wait for a goose to go right under the eaves of the roof and he will try to drop the green beans on a goose's head.
     Sorry, I got off track.  This morning for breakfast George got his two eggs with two hamburger buns and some beef liver that I cut up into small strips so he could bring some back to the nest.  He didn't take more than 2 minutes to get his eggs.
     I also did something different with him today.  Lately for the past week or so George has made himself seen, but not seen.  That is out of the his character from this winter.  George would stay with me for hours at a time and now I hardly see him.  And when I do see him he treats me like I'm a stranger.  So after he showed up I dissed him.  He landed on the birch tree and clapped his beak at me and cocked his head.  Normally by that point I would have said, "Hi George, Good Boy George." then I would have turned and walked away.  His release from the pressure of me talking to him while he stays in one place on the tree.
     Instead of talking to George, I looked up at him and turned my back on him without saying a word or looking back.  My theory seemed to work.
     While I was ignoring George, Deegan and I went around the pasture to take pictures and look at fence lines.  The whole time George would croak at me above my head waiting for me to say something.  I completely ignored him.  Deegan and I would stop here and there taking pictures or mending fence as we went.  After we went into the house and I watched as George flew around the house a couple of times.  Deegan and I went back out after we got a drink and I decided I wasn't quite ready to do chores yet so I grabbed a pail of water from the stalls and practiced my action/water shots.  I took different things and dropped in them into the pail.  I would take photos of the splash.  Here is one of the photos I took today.

Deegan and I did this for about a half an hour.  After that I went and started chores.  Well the geese were having a fit.  They make a certain type of ruckus when George is around.  So I went out into the grain shed and pulled out some bread. I fed the geese a little bit and all of a sudden I heard a whoosh, whoosh noise coming from behind and above me.  That  crazy bird didn't land in the birch tree or on the roof.  He landed right above me in the Willow tree.  At this point I still wasn't talking to him.  He tried everything to get my attention.  I slowly got my camera and walked back to the fence post and started taking photos of George. After the third or fourth photo I finally greeted him and told him he was a good boy.  Since he stayed with me the whole time I went into the house and gave him an egg to reinforce the behavior of him staying with me.  George even stayed there in the Willow tree the whole time I was in the house and it took him a few minutes to take the egg.  He then flew around the barn with it.  I think today he was trying to hide his food differently.  I have four crows here at the farm.  They have been making themselves a nuisance to George lately.  They have been ganging up on him and stealing food from George's stashes.  He flew around the barn several more times before landing in the Willow tree again.  Here are some shots of him in the Willow tree.

George hung up in that Willow tree for nearly an hour.  He didn't leave until I went back into the house.  But before I did go in the house I went back inside the grain shed and got some bread to put on the roof for George.  He didn't leave once in almost an hour.  He stayed there the whole time and watched me and Deegan do chores.  Again the bread on the roof is a positive reinforcer for him staying with me.  Now I don't want you to think that I want to completely tame George.  I don't.  I want George to very much as wild as possible.  It's just nice to have a relationship with such an intelligent bird.  I also get to see a side of raven's that most people don't get to see.  I feel very blessed.

After we got with chores Deegan and I went into the house.  George at one point must have lost track of me somehow because he flew around the house not once, but twice.  We know that George knows my truck.  Truck is still in the driveway so Sierra is still that the farm.  The second time George passed around the house he landed right on this post.

Kathy and I were watching him for a couple of minutes. I got some great shots of him on that post.  One of my favorites is this one!

We have no idea what made him jump like that, but it was funny.  He reacted to whatever it was that scared him like a mouse scarring a woman.  It was so funny!  We were laughing so hard.  And I can't believe I stayed focus long enough to get this shot!!!!

I then went out onto the front porch and got some more great shots of him.

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This one he is saying, "HAW! I found you Sierra!"  After he found me he took off.  What a crazy wonderful bird!!!!  He hung around with me on that farm all morning!!!  It was nice to see him, flying around free in the sky.  And at one point of George taking food off.  He was in one corner of the woods when all of sudden Gracie started making a racket.  Next thing I know George is flying toward the nest like his tail was on fire. The only thing I can think of is that the men who are working on the highway are getting to close to the nest.  I wish there was something I could do.  I may have to go over into the median sometime this weekend and take a peak and make sure the nest is alright.  Maybe I'll even leave a note and some donuts to those guys.  Maybe they will think its cute and maybe stay away from the nest.  Oh, I don't know.  I guess I will figure it out when I need to.  What a great day.  Isn't George just beautiful?  He is probably one of the best looking Ravens I have ever seen.  He truly is a credit to the Raven species!!

Thank you for stopping by George: The Old Silo Raven.

George and I appreciate it.

George: The Old Silo Raven

Welcome to the beginning of what I believe will be an unique experience and great fun!  This blog is about how, what, when and where I fell in love with this fascinating bird.  I will not just be sharing the story of my life with George, but I will also be putting interesting facts and videos of George and other Ravens on here.  I will be conducting my own study of Ravens in the northeast.  I hope you will learn a great deal from me and George, but most of all I hope you enjoy the good times I have talking to and about George: The Old Silo Raven.

I met George in 2010.  It was the summer time.  I just started back working on the farm where I keep my horse Lacey.  I personally have never been into birds and never really appreciated them until George.  I remember the day meeting George just like it was yesterday.  It was a hot day and I was visiting that day.  My friend Kathy who owns the farm told me to look up because the big black bird had come.  I looked up into the air and I couldn't breathe.  He was enormous.  His wing span could rival an adult Bald Eagle.  I was smitten that very first day.  I thought he was a crow at first but then after studying the picture Kathy took to others on the web I knew that he was a Raven.  Ravens are not wide spread up here in Vermont.  We have more Crows than Ravens.

Kathy had been feeding George.  She didn't name him George, she just called him the big black bird.  He was little skittish of humans and he really doesn't like Kathy's big German Sheppard either.   I watched him one morning and something else happened that day.  He brought his mate.  For several months I watched the two ravens.  My friend Kathy loves crows and ravens and she happened to find an author who wrote about Ravens.  

This book is very insightful on the Raven and their habits.  It helped me a great deal in working with George. I was able to find out that Raven's mate for life.  So I realized that this huge Raven was bringing his mate to the farm and showing her where to feed.  They were so fun to watch.  You wouldn't think that animals have a sense of humor, but within this blog you will find that they do.  I also noticed how attentive George was to his mate.  Always shielding her from the snow and wind when perched.  He always let her eat first when they were together.  The way these ravens were acting with each other made one couple come to mind.  That was George and Gracie Burns.

George and Gracie Burns were the most funny, loving, and dedicated couple I remember.  A relationship to withstand time.  That is when I decided to name the Ravens, George and Gracie.  And they have been together now for 4 years and are still my best comic relief!

Once I named them I decided that I wanted to see if the myths about Ravens were true.  There are many myths about Ravens. All through history Ravens were revered as the creators of the earth, bringer of death and disease.  Tricks and lies are also other things that Ravens were said to bring with them.  Ravens are also known to be in alliances with the devil, witches and wizards.  They are also known by the Native Americans as the trickster. Here is a website of an old Cree Indian story about a raven.

http://www.calverley.ca/Part06-Legends/6-005.html

So taking all of my knowledge I tried to think of a training method to use to get George to come when I call. At the farm we use a training technique called Clicker Training.  Clicker Training is a type of Positive Reinforcement training used first on dolphins by Karen Proyer, but now with chickens with Bill Bailey and with horses with Alexandra Kurland.  When a pet does what you ask you click with a special clicker or with your tongue making a click sound.  Then you give your pet the treat.  Timing and Patience are key.  When giving your pet the click then administering the food is the positive reinforcer and  the animal will start seeing that if I do this type of thing then I get treated for it.  I knew that I could use this type of method with George, but not the clicking sound because it would make him leave.  So I had to come up with another way to earn George's trust.  That is when I discovered Pressure/ Release training.  Some horse trainers use it in training their horses.  You push or shape a horse into your desired task and when it finally does it you reward it with releasing the pressure.

So I started by putting food out there in the morning and mimicking what Kathy had already started by imitating a Raven calling.   In the mornings I would holler his name, put the food on the roof and wait 20 feet away and when he came I would say, "Good Boy George."  After working with him for 4 years I can now call him and he will show up within 1 min or a little longer.  Below is a video of the time allotment of George coming to me when I call him.

Please stay tuned for some really wonderful and unbelieveable stories.  Learn little tidbits and facts about Ravens.  And maybe we will both be able to see George and Gracie's babies this summer!  Thanks for stopping in and I hope you enjoy the site.