I’ve lived on our ranch in the Mojave Desert of Southern California for nearly 30 years now and Spring is the time of the year I love to watch the birds.

The birds around the ranch that have been the most interesting and fun to watch have been the California Ravens.

No, these are not Crows. Ravens are about twice the weight on average and stand between 18- and 24-inches head to tail. Their beaks are thicker, and they soar and dive on the thermals. They also have a different language with many interesting sounds. In flight, their tails are not straight across, they fan out in an arc. And they have a sense of humor.

We have a dog on the ranch whose mother was a Rottweiler, sired by what we suspect was a Jack Russell Terrier. She loves chasing rabbits and we see her boing-boinging through the brush when she’s trying to catch one.

She loves to chase the Ravens. They love to play games with her. One Raven will sit on the arena fence, well within her reach, and caw at her until she gives chase. That bird will fly across the arena 3 feet off the ground and pull up and sit on the top edge of the barn, staring at her and cawing and clucking until she gets there.

She jumps up barking like she’s going to catch that bird until it flies off and lands on a corral fence 50 yards away, again within her reach from the ground. It sits cawing at her until she gets just close enough before it flies to another part of the ranch, perches and waits, calling for her, and I suspect, laughing at her. I’ve watched that bird-and-dog chase go on for quite a while until one of them gets tired and flies off or heads back to the porch for the shade.

We’ve had several pairs of Ravens nest on the property. We’ve watched them build their nest of sticks, dry brush, grasses and whatever looks like building material to them. They laid their eggs and one parent sat on the eggs continuously.

They are notorious nest robbers themselves, so they are very protective of their own. One parent would be off hunting or doing whatever Ravens do for a few hours and return to the nest so the other can leave and do the same.

You can’t tell one from another because they really all do look alike. They are black, shiny, and big.

They are the garbagemen of the desert, so we see them on the road cleaning up carrion from roadkill.

Once the chicks hatch, they maintain that one-parent-always-with-the babies-schedule until the babies are about ready to leave the nest. They feed the babies a lot. In a few weeks the babies are nearly the size of their parents.

First flight for the baby Ravens is a joy to watch. We had one pair who nested on top of the electrical equipment at the top of a telephone pole. That was 40 to 50 feet above the ground.

Alpha Baby was very interested in leaving home as he matured and was the first one on the edge of the nest looking around. He was the first one who attempted to flap up to the cross bar at the top of the pole.

The second one was more timid. It took him another day or two before he tried to join his sibling on the cross bar. Little Sister was the most timid about getting to the edge of the nest and took two or three days more to try for the cross bar.

Alpha Baby was the first one to try out his wings. He jumped off the cross bar and soared about 75 feet away from the pole and landed with a small thud in the center of our round pen.

He flapped his wings, ruffled his feathers and strutted like he was king-of-the-walk.  He was proud of himself for flying, even though the landing was a bit crude.

He hopped up on the top rail of the six-foot high round pen and called his brother who did the same flight, landing with a thud in nearly the same spot. He couldn’t get the hang of how to perch on the bottom rail of the round pen. He kept falling off.

He walked over to the Juniper tree outside the round pen and flapped his way to the top of that.

Little Sister spent the entire night up on the cross beam alone. She wasn’t ready yet. Neither parent stayed with her. She crash-landed in the Juniper tree the next day.

I watched Alpha Baby strutting on the ground like he was the Little Prince while she shuddered on that Juniper for several hours before she was ready to take to her wings again.

The parent birds talked to their babies until they finally got all three in the air. They took them up for their soaring lessons in the thermals several hundred feet above the ranch.

We had another clutch of three Ravens born in a 40-foot pine in front of our house. The babies flew from tree to tree, crash landing but improving each time as they tested their wings.

I watched one parent bird take the three babies up for their first soaring lesson. The last one in that group, I called the Fighter Pilot, was at the back of the pack when he turned sideways to the ground for some reason. Then he turned upside down and was headed straight for the ground.

I held my breath. I was afraid he was going to hit the ground and that would be the end of him. Then I watched him catch himself, turn over and struggle from about 6 feet from the ground. He headed back into the air.

He flapped like a demon to catch up with his parent and siblings, but he did it. Watching those four birds find a thermal and begin to soar was beautiful to see.

We still have several of those babies here at the ranch. They tend to stick around where they were born, sometimes for years.

We have one who injured his right leg. When he flies over the house, you can hear him coming and passing over. If you look up, you can see that right leg dangling and swinging in the breeze while his left leg is tucked up under his tail as it should be.

He still manages to eat, fly, and do what Ravens do.

He’s been here for two years now, so the leg must not be bothering his eating, hunting, and getting around. He perches on the one leg at the top of the telephone pole, using his wing to prop up the injured leg.

We hope he’ll be around for a long time, find a mate, and have his own brood here.

I’m always envious when I watch them soar. How would it feel to leave the ground and fly with the wind?