Tales from the Trail Cam

At Wolf Ridge, we have a trail-cam, a small camera we can stick in the woods that records photos when motion is detected. A couple weeks ago, it was placed in front of a deer carcass that had been taken in from a nearby road, and we ended up with some pretty incredible photographs.

It's not uncommon to see ravens and bald eagles feeding alongside each other - both are opportunistic scavengers. However, I still found this to be a bit surprising, given my recent knowledge about how ravens will mob predators hanging out near their nests.

Bernd Heinrich also found this to be curious and in Mind of the Raven, he describes how he introduced various non-ravens into the enclosure where he kept four ravens and observed their reactions. For example, when he put a chicken inside, the ravens harassed it at first, pulling at its tail, but quickly lost interest and ended up ignoring the chicken. In contrast, when he put a large, proud rooster inside, the ravens did not torment the bird whatsoever, leading Heinrich to wonder whether they'd already learned to generalize all "chicken-like" creatures or if they were intimidated by the dominant demeanor of the rooster. Heinrich continued to experiment, with a turkey, a dog, etc., ultimately concluding that ravens always attempt to get to know a novel predator in their feeding environment and then engage in one of two reactions: ignoring it or trying to kill it.

In general, ravens seem willing to tolerate dangerous predators if there is food to be had nearby - ravens have been observed feeding beside coyotes in Yellowstone National Park. Sometimes, they even get brave enough to try to dominate a feeding site, or steal food from a larger predator. In this PBS video, a raven pulls at an eagle's tail; the eagle could do some serious damage to the raven with its talons, but they are currently in use holding onto some meat. Eventually, the eagle gives up and lets go, giving the raven its chance to sneak in and grab a snack.

Sometimes, ravens will mess with eagles, seemingly just for the sake of messing around.

Here are some more awesome trail cam photos:

Bloody Beak.

Defensive posture.

"Back off!!"

An immature bald eagle.

Four at once - bald eagle party!

Suddenly...a bobcat appears!

Bobcat checking out the camera.

And a fox.