Flight Aerobatics of Ravens in Utah, USA

May 2008

Dozens of ravens (presumably Corvus corax) were observed in aerobatic flight, making use of uplift provided by a small, isolated hill in south Utah. The main features of their flight are displayed in the video clip below, which has three parts:

• A pair of ravens flying together, with one raven repeatedly flipping onto its back while in flight.
• A single raven repeatedly passing an object between its bill and claws. (Another instance a raven participated in inverted flight with another raven while carrying a stick of wood in its claws, and also passed it bill to claws.)
• An distant view of the hill showing the general pattern of flights.

The ravens didn't appear to be feeding. Wikipedia says that crows do a sort of aerial jousting to establish a pecking order.

When the video is ready, you should see an image below (prior to that, while the video is loading, you'll see the QuickTime 'Q' symbol). To start the video, click the 'play' icon (bottom-left corner). The video can be controlled (even reversed) by dragging the 'play head' icon. The first two segments play at a quarter of real-time speed.

This was mid-May in 2008, at around 6pm. When passing the hill twice again in the following week there were ravens present at the hill engaging the same behaviour.

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