A Visit From the Magical Raven

Look who was looking at me! An unusual visitor landed on the deck railing. A big, beautiful, black Raven sat looking at me for a minute or so, (long enough for me to get a picture through the window), cocking its head, bobbing it beak, then flew softly away. We have three, tube-style bird feeders hanging from the Log eve, directly above where the Raven landed. The winter-only feeders frequented by many species of Alaska birds include, Nuthatch, Black Capped Chickadees, Grosbeaks and other smaller song birds. Looking out our huge cabin windows, I love to watch the feeders while working at my laptop. Today, a large nomadic group of Bohemian Waxwings were high in the Spruce, flying, eating and swirling all in concert. It was magical.

Ravens are very popular in Alaska. Many Native Alaska beliefs depict the Raven as the “trickster” spirit and play an important part as spirit beings in Northwest mythology. Many people have a special affection for Ravens including myself. The steel Raven wall sculptures I make are customer favorites at the Galleries. I plasma cut the birds and leaves, hand bend the steel branches, weld the wings and then the birds to the branches. I like to finish the pieces with One Shot sign painters enamel paint. These are pictures of wall sculptures that are drying and I just finished embellishing the beak with red glass beads on copper wire to look like a fresh picked berry.

Here are a couple links to the Bird Treatment and Learning Center and the Alaska Bird Observatory which we support.