Bye Bye Blackbird!

Sometime ago I came across an Australian Raven or Crow (as a lay person they are hard to tell apart, but for convenience I will call it an Australian Raven). It was sitting on top of the rubbish in an open garbage dumpster behind a shopping centre tucking into what was left of a bag of hot chips. Its feathers were askew, with his unkempt looking bunch of feathers at the throat and while it looked like it was enjoying itself the whole scene looked really evil. Especially when you hear their mournful cry (courtesy of YouTube) . Charles Dickens’s raven, Grip, who had an impressive vocabulary, appears as a character in the author’s fifth novel, Barnaby Rudge. Dickens found Grip inspirational.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150820-the-mysterious-tale-of-charles-dickenss-raven

However, since then I have been reading up on ravens and learned what intelligent birds they are, with a really big brain and the ability to reason. They are indeed very clever.

I was watching a fledgling from a family of ravens who live in trees on the waterfront in front of our home recently. He arrived with a large piece of bread, much too large to eat. IF he were to put it down, he would not doubt lose it to another bird.. So he sat on our fence for a time, thinking.

I laughed when he dropped the bread in our neighbour’s bird bath. I became very curious when he left the bread in the water, and sat patiently watching over it. What was he doing?

 

After a minute or two he began pulling the soaked bread apart into smaller pieces that could fit into his mouth. How clever!

He continued until the bread was totally consumed.

So I began having a read up on Crows and Ravens and was amazed at their intelligence. They are probably the most intelligent of birds. They were kept as a pet by some in times gone by.

I Also discovered that the amount of golf balls, (five to date that we’ve found in our garden) have likely been brought by ravens that regard them as eggs and drop them from the roof our home hoping the shell will break so they can eat the contents.

There are so many tricks they can do! Some have a number of steps they must work out for themselves to achieve their goal. They also show great ingenuity when it comes to nest-building. They have been seen pulling the rubber strips out of car windscreen wipers to line their nests and stealing letters from letter boxes to shred.

As I like to look for scripture about what I write, I was surprised to find that whilst ravens were listed amongst the birds we are told not to eat, that God used them powerfully.  In His Word,  He instructed the ravens to feed the prophet Elijah whilst in hiding.

• ^“So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside Kerith Brook, east of the Jordan.  The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. (1 Kings 17)
  
• “Sing out your thanks to the Lord; sing praises to our God with a harp.
  ⁸ He covers the heavens with clouds,
  provides rain for the earth,
  and makes the grass grow in mountain pastures.
  ⁹ He gives food to the wild animals
  and feeds the young ravens when they cry.” Leviticus 11:13

God compares His love and care for us to ravens and birds in general.

“Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds!” Luke 12:24

As you start your day, give thanks to the God who loves you, and will never leave you or forsake you.

Blessings,

Marilyn xx