A STRANGE RELATIONSHIP: MAN AND RAVEN

Joe Shute - intriguing talk at Birdfair

TO save a stack of money, should local councils ditch their refuse disposal departments and replace them with scavenging birds such as ravens?

Author and Daily Telegraph feature writer Joe Shute didn’t go this far in an entertaining presentation at Birdfair, but he made the observation that, such was their former abundance, they once served as the equivalent of “medieval dustcart crews”.

There was a bumper audience to hear Joe talk about his exhaustively-researched and sensitively-written first book, A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven.

 

The bird was revered by the Celts, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and Victorians.

It featured regularly as a  battle motif on banners and weapons, and it was believed by the Druids to transport souls to the other world. It might even have done so with the legendary King Arthur.

The species has been included in many place names and it has been adopted as the name of a few pubs (and as an ale in the Orkneys). It is also the emblem of Hexton Cricket Club in Hertfordshire

Churchwarden records reveal that the raven  was among many bird species widely culled out of concerns that it posed a threat to crops.

More recently it may have have fallen victim to gamekeeper-persecution in the Peak District.

Based on his own observations, ravens do not (contrary to the claim of some sheep farmers) prey on new-born lambs.

The Sheffield-based author, a History graduate from Leeds University and keen cyclist, performed passable impressions of the bird's strangely evocative croaking callnote.

He noted that Charles Dickens had two pet birds, and the species is mentioned in one of his novels, Barnaby Rudge.

Happily, ravens appears to be on the increase and, according to Joe, has repopulated such cities as Bristol, Chester and Swansea, sometimes choosing buildings with Gothic architecture to make its nest.

Its  habitat nearest to London is believed to be the  Swanscombe Park wetland in North-west Kent, but this may be lost if a plan to develop a theme park on the site goes ahead.

An amazingly intelligent species, might it be possible to train ravens to sniff out truffles?

For the answer to that, the world must wait.

A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven is published by Bloomsbury.