I’m lucky enough to live in an area that is frequented by ravens. When I first moved here there were times when I would go outside because I felt restless and confused, and when I cast my eyes upward I was sometimes rewarded by the sight of a raven (or occasionally two) flying overhead.

I especially remember one time when I was out walking my dog and a raven flew over, circled overhead as if to check us out and then sped off.  Another time when the dog and I were skijoring in the same area, I could hear the ravens quorking to one another nearby, as if they were discussing the unusual spectacle.

These encounters with ravens seemed special and exciting, and I couldn’t help wondering if I could consider them as omens, or as messengers of some sort. As a Heathen Humanist from a scientific family I try to avoid a lot of magical thinking, especially the kind where the world is supposed to revolve around me. Still, the thought was there and would not go away.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to learn more about ravens, and I read Ravens in Winter by zoologist and animal behavior expert Bernd Heinrich. There I learned that among their many hunting and scavenging strategies, ravens apparently follow wolves so they can feed off their kills. A biologist in Alaska reported the following:

The only instance of a raven ever closely approaching me as I was hiking through the study area was the one occasion when I had a dog with me; it resembled a wolf very closely. … It would seem advantageous for ravens to keep close contact with wolves, especially during winter when daylight is so limited in the Arctic.

We do not have wolves here but we have coyotes, and my Siberian Husky looks a lot like an Eastern Coyote. So in a sense my feeling that the raven was checking us out was probably true — but he was not interested in me, he was interested in my dog!

Now I’ve seen more of them over the years, and noticed that they tend to fly in certain patterns, often from north to south above our small valley. Repeated observation has made me realize that their flights are not omens: they are out flying in regular hunting patterns, searching for food, just trying to make a living like the rest of us. Nothing magical about it.

It’s certainly a pleasure to be able to learn more about them by observing them in their natural habitat, a privilege not everyone has. But when I gained this knowledge, I lost something: a sense of connection, a sense that the movements of time and nature and animals have meaning.

Perhaps there is a larger pattern or power at work, that makes the raven leave its nest at just that time and fly over me and my dog, sometimes issuing a friendly quork. Or perhaps the ravens just have their own agenda.