At one point, we saw the entire family of six ravens flying.
If you visit and don't see the ravens, that doesn't mean they are gone. A similar visit on Thursday morning came up empty.
Earlier raven posts are here.
Julie McCall wrote in last week to ask if any previous Common Raven nests at Laurel Hill had been successful, and the answer is yes.
Last year, for example, two young ravens successfully left the nest in early May-- though they still received food from Mom and Dad. (Photo is above, a couple of links are here and here. (Thanks for asking!)
After we got word that Common Ravens had been seen on Disposal Road three days in a row this week, we thought we had better check on the nest just below the cliff at Laurel Hill in Secaucus.
Bottom line: All appears well. We saw one raven on the nest (above). We know, it's a little to hard to see a raven in the shade, but we try...
The other raven was perched in the tree below the nest. It was kind enough to fly past -- probably on its way to Disposal Road.
To top things off, we had a Peregrine Falcon (above left) fly overhead.
Neat place, that Laurel Hill.
Tomorrow: Kearny Osprey Update.
The Common Ravens at Laurel Hill in Secaucus have been tending to at least two ravenettes in their nest.
In the photo above, Pop is flying down the cliff to get some food he stashed on a rock below the nest.
Earlier this week, we saw two young but large Common Ravens flapping their wings in the nest, preparing for their first flights. They will be flying any day now.
Previous posts on the Laurel Hill Ravens here.
Recently, when a Red-tailed Hawk approached Laurel Hill, where Common Ravens are nesting, the male raven flew out to meet the Redtail and read it the riot act until the hawk was well beyond the nest.
In the shot above, you can get a sense of just how large a bird a raven is.
Click "Continue reading ..." below to see other photos in the sequence.
For at least the third year in a row -- and in recent memory -- Common Ravens are nesting in a cliff at Laurel Hill County Park in Secaucus.
You can see the nest clearly from the athletic fields at the foot of the massive hill, and with a pair of binoculars, you can get good views of the ravens as they come and go,
But other birds abound as well. On a recent trip, we also saw a Peregrine Falcon, an Osprey, two Redtails and five Turkey Vultures -- and that was just that raptors.
The ravens' nest has gotten much larger in the past month, and there is hope that some Ravenettes will emerge in a couple of weeks.
More on the amazingly intelligent Common Raven here. Previous posts on Common Ravens here.
Coming soon: A Common raven duels with a Redtail.
We checked on the Common Raven's nest at Laurel Hill County Park earlier week.
We did not see any Common Ravens, though recent sightings have been reported.
But we did notice the nest is a lot more built-up than when we checked last month.
Thankfully, the snow is gone, too.
Here's the link to earlier post. More on Common Ravens here.
Once upon a midday dreary, when we wandered weak and weary ...
We came across this Raven's nest at Hudson County Park at Laurel Hill.
As birder Ray Duffy has posted, two Ravens have been seen in that vicinity earlier this month: "At
Laurel Hill Park, I finally got the pair of Common Ravens. I'm going
to assume they are the breeding pair because they were both hanging
close to each other and I'm certain it looked like they were preening
the back of each other's heads as they picked at the snow for food."
Don Torino also reports seeing a Common Raven -- on Sunday on Valley Brook Avenue in Lyndhurst.
An earlier post on Ravens is here.
As for the bad Raven poetry, nevermore.
NJMC naturalist Michael Newhouse saw this bird and its buddy on transmission towers near the Carillon on Disposal Road in North Arlington, and gave us a call.
In previous years a pair of ravens has nested on Laurel Hill in Secaucus. More on ravens here.
A blog about the nature of the Meadowlands, in northern New Jersey.
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