This book, by a Sheffield-based journalist, is about the Raven and its comeback. It’s a good read as the author travels around the country visiting places where Ravens live, many of them places where Ravens have recently returned. He interviews naturalists and land owners from Orkney to Kent, and has also done a good job in mining the literature for interesting characters and stories. Each chapter is an interesting read.
This is a portrait of a bird about which people have strong feelings. I was pleased to read the views of Raven supporters as I think this bird is often just thought of as a ‘big Crow’ whereas it surely deserves its label as an ‘honorary raptor’. But the more interesting comments are surely from those who dislike Ravens – particularly some farmers.
Do Ravens kill lambs? If so, are these healthy lambs or sickly ones? As the author points out, birders tend to opt for the latter view whereas farmers tend to have the former one. I’d start by assuming that landowners have the best chance of being right but if that is so then it is surprising that there appears (on the basis of a rather quick search of the internet) to be a lack of video evidence showing Ravens attacking lambs let alone killing them. Given that there is rather good video evidence of people killing Hen Harriers I’m surprised that there appears to be such a lack of evidence of Ravens getting up to no good. I’d be surprised if no lambs are ever killed by Ravens but the real question is how many? Here is an article that the author wrote in 2016 which covers some of the ground also covered in Chapter 10 of this book.
This is Joe Shute’s first book – he is the senior feature writer of the Daily Telegraph.
I like this book and it contains good descriptions and excellent interviews with a wide range of people (some of whom I know). What it lacks is a synthesis and any strong view from the author. It feels like several chapters of journalism, features, where the story is told engagingly but the reader is left to herself (or himself) to work out what she (or he) thinks. That’s OK, but a bit of a steer of where the author’s thoughts ended up would have improved the book. Each chapter has a narrative grip, but the book as a whole? Less so.
A Shadow above: the fall and rise of the Raven by Joe Shute is published by Bloomsbury on Thursday.
Remarkable Birds by Mark Avery is published by Thames and Hudson – for reviews see here.
Inglorious: conflict in the uplands by Mark Avery is published by Bloomsbury – for reviews see here.
Buy books reviewed here from Blackwell’s and I’ll earn a little bit of money too!
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It’s a pity the author didn’t contact me among the list of Raven enthusiasts. For a number of years I carried out detailed studies of Ravens in the Clyde area of Scotland, and have provided several short summaries to the Raptor Persecution UK blog and various other ornithological outlets. Part of my research involved spending many hours, over several seasons, closely observing (through a telescope) the behaviour of flocks of mainly immature, non-breeding Ravens in fields of lambing ewes. It was an absolute revelation to me. The average flock size attending the fields was of around 30 Ravens, with a maximum of 113 birds gathering at one field of lambing ewes. I can state quite categorically that out of hundreds of observations, I did not once see any Raven even attempting to kill a healthy lamb. I came to regard Ravens as gentle giants, which did little more than attend lambing ewes to feed on the afterbirths. They did of course also scavenge carcasses, including both ewes and lambs, most of which had died overnight, often during inclement weather. I can confirm that Ravens did, on a few extremely rare occasions, start to remove soft flesh, and eyes, from moribund ewes or lambs. I believe that in the small number of cases I witnessed, the animals were on their way out anyway. Admittedly not a pleasant thing to see, but to be unsentimental, not of any significant economic detriment to the farmer. My most vivid memories are of watching, on many occasions, several Ravens gathering around a ewe while the animal was giving birth, followed by the birds gently pecking material from around the ewe’s hind end as the ewe stood patiently allowing the Ravens to do so. A symbiotic arrangement. The farmers I got to know would simply not believe me, and most came away with the usual vitriol against these amazing birds, of which I had grown so fond and appreciative of through careful observation. I’ll be interested to read Joe Shute’s book, especially with regard to my own theories about the changing status of Ravens.
Iain – interesting, thank you.
I recently wrote to DEFRA asking for how much these birds and Red Kites and others were worth for removing afterbirth from the fields. A cost which of course they could not give but at the same time were looking at killing large numbers of Ravens to satisfy their conservative voters!
There must be many folk this man could have visited like Geoff Horn who worked with Derek Ratcliffe for thee book on Ravens https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-raven-9781408146132/
but did the man visit ‘Great Corby’ named after the Raven where Ravens recently returned to breed only to be shot off the nest?
I live a couple of miles from a petro chemical refinery in a part of Scotland that is by our standards quite heavily farmed, there are 150,000 people plus in our comparatively small council area yet ravens have now started breeding here again (in a non sporting estate I regularly walk through). Buzzards are not uncommon and I regularly see one when I step out from my flat, there are otters about twenty minutes walk away, but I haven’t seen them yet. Last year after a couple of years of waiting for them to move back into the district pine martens were positively identified at three widely separated locations nearly simultaneously. Last November one was actually seen sunning itself on the visitor centre of the nearest RSPB reserve at Skinflats miles away from the initial observations. They are moving through the central belt like a dose of salts. All of this goes to show what happens to ‘rare’ wildlife once it simply gets away from traditional persecution. By god our rural areas are in a bad way when the bit of Scotland with most people in it could end up being the main population centre for quite a lot of its wildlife.
”By god our rural areas are in a bad way when the bit of Scotland with most people in it could end up being the main population centre for quite a lot of its wildlife.”
Agree Les. And it’s happening all over.
Round here in W.Sussex a pair of Ravens regularly nest near the top of a big electricity pylon. We assumed the eggs would be micro-waved but no, they keep being successful. The other nice thing is the birds got away for 2-3 years without any official recognition — true edge-land habitat stuff.
Land managers will do almost anything to deflect attention from the basics of their farming, forestry, shooting etc activities – and that is almost certainly the case with Ravens & lambs: for many, many years payment for sheep was based on headage – and like today in the uplands, the subsidies were such a high proportion of income they overload good husbandry almost completely. It led to the sheep wreck of the Welsh uplands as numbers soared. In the Highlands in my youth I remember the endless carcasses of infertile crofting estates. Lambs barely came into it: lambing percentages of 60-70%, and by definition, poor weak animals from poor, underfed mothers.
The realities of sheep farming in those days were so far from farming to actually produce sheep meat that the whole subject was skimmed over in a single lecture on my degree course – in despair on the part of the lecturer, I think.
So there has always needed to be an excuse for the appalling mortality – and a scape goat, if possible, and Ravens, eagles, foxes etc etc all provide worthy villains – its about agricultural sociology, little about bird behaviour.
I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Well it is never about whether Corvids with probably the exception of Rooks kill lambs.
What almost all sheepmen agree on is that they peck the eyes out of any lamb not on its feet quickly which can be nothing more than a Ewe giving birth to another lamb and not being on her feet quickly to the first one.Secondly Ewes are quite commonly cast on their back when for any reason such as heavy wool or heavy in lamb or laying down and getting in a bit of a hollow in the ground when they depend on shepherd righting them and are certainly nowhere near death just needing a steadying hand for a couple of minutes.Problem is the Corvids take the chance to peck their eyes out that is a simple fact.
For all practical purposes they might as well be dead.
All conservationists can believe odd observers as much as they like and not believe this but what I have stated is the truth of the matter.
Corvids are awful killers because they are not equipped like most Eagles etc and when they do kill things it is a gonising death.
Whether you believe it or not I have seen Crows attack Fieldfare and Partridge.