After the snow stopped this afternoon, I set up my scope to do a little driveway birding. I noticed some dark specks over Buffalo Hill; these showed to be 3 pairs of RAVENS, each pair flying wingtip-to-wingtip as mated pairs often do during courtship. All 3 pairs were in a kettle, circling about each other, no more than 30-40 feet apart. One of the pairs seemed less closely attached than the other two, and would separate for some distance before coming back together. I was wondering to myself if they ever got mixed up, when, twice, I observed two pairs come very close and actually exchange partners for around 5 seconds or so (each new "couple" flying wingtip-to-wingtip) before breaking apart and returning to their original situation. All this lasted for 10 minutes before 2 of the pairs floated elsewhere. I then watched the remaining pair doing short dives, barrel rolls, etc.
Steve Fast Brooktondale -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
