BOBO | d 9 9 9 9 9 9+ X - Z Richard Northover f B LOM! ` x H H (F l / E d < [ _ S DSET T ( % & O P y z Site of the Week
The Ravens Aviary
http://www.shades-of-night.com/aviary/
If the number of websites dedicated to them is anything to go by, theres a surprisingly large number of people in the world who are heavily into corvids. The corvid family includes crows, ravens and magpies, and it seems that corvidophiles, as they refer to themselves, have a real cult going.
The Ravens Aviary is one of the good ones - its a brimming hoarde of information, fact files, photos, drawings and shiny pieces of paper collected by the sites author. The galley is particularly large as wildlife galleries go, and it can be perused at once, or in individual sections for the different species. Something worth keeping an eye out for is the picture of an albino raven - rather a strange sight.
Theres biological background reading on each of the main species, along with sound files of their calls, and some great nuggets of information, like the names for groups of corvids. Most people know the name for a group of crows (and if you dont, youll like it,) but do you know what a group of ravens is called? Or a group of magpies? Theyre all strikingly unusual, perhaps reflecting the fact that corvids have a special place in the folklore of many human cultures. And you can read about these aspects too - how ravens came to be associated with the Tower of London, why so many people prefer to see two magpies rather than one, and how a quirk in the behaviour of crows and ravens may be the origin of the phoenix legend. According to some, the crow is responsible for the creation of man and for putting the sun in the sky - the least you can do in return is visit their website.
Richard Northover
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