Interesting tale. I've not been around ravens that much, but I think they are slightly more social out of the breeding season, or in scavaging a carcass, when they are in the often in the company of eagles.

In Spain, the imperial eagle preys on ravens, but I haven't heard of that behavior with the closely related golden eagle and the ravens native to the US.

Once, while camping in the Rockies in early June, I watched several ravens cavorting overhead - they have much deeper voices than crows - a good field "mark," along with the the shaggy neck feathers, wedge-tail, and more massive beak. They are amazingly good fliers, and I saw several 360-degree rolls performed by the ravens that day.

Perhaps the small group I saw was an extended family. With most birds, dad is a fully involved partner in rearing the young. Indeed, in some bird species, fledglings and yearlings sometimes hang around and help the parents raise a second brood.

The exceptions, of course, are the nest parasites, which lay their eggs in the nests of other birds.

In the United States, brown-headed cowbirds are prolific nest parasites. Some host species deal with the foreign egg by building another nest right on top of it, but others are fooled into raising the baby cowbird, which then usually succeeds in ejecting the rightful nestlings.

Cowbirds are doing enormous damage to native songbird populations in the United States, particularly since almost all of our woodlands have become so fragmented that the deep woods nesters no longer have any protection from the cowbird.

Of course, it's not just the cowbirds that are taking a toll on the songbirds. Television towers, skyscrapers and other man-made obstructions also play a significant role in the decline of our native avian species, and I haven't even touched on the other, less obvious but no-less-harmful environmental changes.

We have our own bad eggs to contend with, eh?

Thanks for your story.

S