Raven's Call ~ Part Three
Part of the magic of our encounter with ravens on the Buffalo was that we were looking down or out at elusive birds previously seen only when looking up. I'm not sure I've ever observed one of these creatures as anything but a stark black bird shadow against the sky--more often than not, against gray clouds, it seems in my memory's eye.
But from almost 4000 feet, these birds appeared to me in both a different relationship (watching one bird interact with other birds in the group) and in a different light--literally--as these two regrettably imperfect images reveal.
Never in my wildest imagination would I have expected to see any color whatsoever in the feathers of a raven--the epitome of blackness. And yet, both in this image and several others, when spread full, the primaries of wing and tail show this ruddy-rust color so clearly.
I would have missed this color-fact, except for being able to bring back the images saved by the eye of the camera, and I was amazed when it first opened up on my computer monitor back warm at home Saturday evening. I had learned something useful in the sense that it increases my knowing an illusive but favorite creature a little better for the rest of my days.
And then--perhaps it was the very same bird--seen with the afternoon sun glancing off the sheen of its oiled feathers, the bird can appear positively platinum.
This shot was, I had imagined, one of the best of the bunch because it was taken while the bird hovered for a second at the end of the air-tunnel game, suspended as if it were painted against the rocky spires behind it. I could tell in the camera's viewfinder that I'd gotten the ghostly bird well-framed, but couldn't tell in the full daylight that it, like most of the images I brought back, was not sharp. But look at the contrast, this view compared to the one above. Here again, a new way of seeing a familiar, if typically very distant, old friend.