Where were those birds headed?

Amazing sight early this afternoon: a huge flight of large black birds circling so high in the air that they were scarcely larger than specks. Just large enough to be visible as black. And large. As in ravens, possibly. Or they might have been vultures, on their way to the desert, though I'd have thought that buzzards were long since comfortably settled in the Sonoran warmth. I would guess that there were well over 50 of the critters in the high group. A subsidiary unkindness of ravens circled at a much lower elevation -- maybe as many as 25, which is a real crowd. All were headed west southwest -- and gone by the time I fetched up my camera. (The picture above is a much older photo, my only good picture of ravens in flight.)

I was reminded of a lingering question: what has become of the rookery in the forest to the southwest of town? For many years, beginning at about four on a late fall or early winter afternoon, ravens would begin to drift in that direction, one or two or three at a time. They came from the old landfill, from the grocery store lots, from PV, all over. More birds would continue to head southwest well into dusk. The numbers added up.

Of late, I have only seen a handful of ravens flying toward the old rookery site (which we never did locate, BTW). Have the raven adolescents found a new location to meet up and crash? Perhaps near the new landfill out SR169? Certainly we haven't lost our raven population -- or are their numbers down?

Linkage: Every day, NASA posts an amazing earth image taken from satellites, the International Space Station or the shuttle; today's picture shows cloud waves caused by a series of islands. To subscribe to weekly notifications, use the form here.