Whitetails & Ravens? Bizarre Behavior...
 

I'm not a new Whitetail hunter. This is my 29th year of Whitetail hunting. The vast majority of my Whitetail hunting has always been sitting, usually all day.

Today I've been seeing something I've never seen before. I've had 3 bucks and a handful of does come by so far today. EVERY single deer I've seen has had a whole flock (Murder?) of Ravens with it. I hear them cawing, a deer comes by, the Ravens circle it and fly around until it's 300 - 500 yards from me. Then they leave. Just before the next deer steps out they do it all again. Exactly the same every time.

It's super handy...I call them my strike indicator lol. But it's weird!! Anybody else ever seen this?

Do they maybe walk through raven’s turf on the way to you?

One of the deer in area injured maybe? Most likely from domestic dogs...

A murder of ravens can be pretty smart. They probably noticed you and associate you as a bad man so they are birding the deer until the deer are past you. :sHa_shakeshout: The deer probably won't stop while the ravens are harassing them.

Actually it could be that the ravens know predators supply them with 'pickings".
The birds follow the deer. The predators follow the birds. Both work close together, especially in winter.

I've read and heard about the latter. Just never seen it before.

I dunno about the former.....that's about as likely as the fella talkin about domestic dogs up there lol

i read about this happening on kodiak and afognak islands. Ravens follow blacktails and make a lot of noise. The author stated that he would routinely follow the ravens and would often come across a brown bear doing the same thing. Makes sense that our ravens do the same. They are smart birds.

Another raven story. Last year I shot a doe, dragged it out to a cutline to gut it. By the time I was done, there was at least 100 ravens circling silently overhead. As I left they descended in what looked like a raven tornado. But no sound. Guess they knew what was going on and that they wouldn't need help opening a hide.

Hugin and Mugin need to be fed.
Count yourselve fortunate that they favor you enough to bring deer to you. Now shoot one and feed them for their service.

Ravens know how the system works. Predator kills prey...predator takes some of the "spoils"...moves away... Ravens and other scavengers move in... clean up... Perfect system.:sHa_shakeshout: Ravens are out there helping the "predator" succeed, so they can help speed up the system so that it works to their advantage. Seen these birds do amazing things over the years !:)

Ravens are probably one of the smartest birds ,way smarter then a parrot IMO
they associate you as the predator
they knew you were there
and were expecting you to shoot the deer
Hunter = gun shot=dead deer= food for the ravens
kinda like that is how they are thinking
so they are waiting & watching you
when a deer comes by
they get excited and start harassing the deer
to throw it off its guard and make a mistake which gives you the better chance of getting the deer
dunno if that makes sense but that's what they were basically up to
I've experienced it many times

Ravens can tip you off to pending action ........ Same as squirrels.

Get ready, somethings coming ..........

Really cool story.

One of the old guys at our club told us that for years, the ravens would harass and funnel the deer and game toward him and his blind. He swore they were in it for a free lunch. I was pretty young when he told the story ...... I know ravens and crow are really smart ..... but that would be crazy smart.

This old guy lived in the bush for 50-60 years and certainly wasn't the type of guy to tell fairy-tales and taught me quite a few "counter intuitive" things about hunting.

It would be interesting for someone to do a study on this.

You never know.

When hunting I always pay attention to the Ravens and Eagles.

Ravens will directly point out where the prey is, swooping and circling, barrel rolls.... Their actions will also tell you where the deer are not.

Eagles are more subtle.

Cool story. I will have to pay attention to see if this happens to me in the future. :)

I had this happen to me on Sunday. Ravens flying around and a buck walks by. Handy birds.

In the past 45 years I studied ravens very well,their a bird that every hunter should pay attention to,there's a bit of trickster in them .

I drove up to a moose cut pile on day that was fresh with a dead raven on it,3 days latter nothing had touched it and the I told the guy I was with that nothing would touch and he looked at me kinda odd,when we drove up and it was all there he was suprised so I removed the raven and in 2 days there was just a spot where the gut pile was.

How often do see a dead raven on the road killed,for me not that many,they are very smart and know more than most folks think.If you want luck ask an eagle in a nice way or even a prayer to him if life is troubling you,it can't hurt that I know for sure,the rest is personal and will leave it up to you guys to do your home work.

they are smart
just leave yer pickup window open with yer lunch on the seat for a while
come back at lunch time see how much lunch you have left:bad_boys_20:

raven's are smart. In fact, i bet the OP is a raven pretending to be a hunter.......:thinking-006:

Yes they are fairly smart, but I shoot them whenever I get the chance, just got two other day..

I strongly agree with all the observations about the ravens. In my years of hunting I have experienced this many time when they were "funnelling "the animals towards my position. I remember one time on very cold day I was just driving around looking for some elk, when a single raven start circling my vehicle and then flying in front of me.I was following him an till we reach a fork on the road.Then he sad on the tree when I turn right. After driving for about half a mille (and not spotting any thing) I turned back only to realise that the raven was still on the tree. When I turn left he start flying again in front of me.Not far we had to travel. About five hundred meters, just after small turn, there were two moose standing on the cut line. Smart raven,I just forgot to tell him that I have elk licence.

Same here. Shoot a raven save the game birds.

I had this happen while hunting black bear this year. Saw a bear moving pretty fast about 1km away on a cut block and went after him on foot. After closing about half the distance I wasn't exactly sure where he was anymore. That's when 4 ravens came in and started circling him and making a bunch of noise. Ended up not getting the bear as he ambled off into thicker bush than I wanted to follow a bear but the ravens continued to locate him for a few hundred more metres before they saw I wasn't following anymore. Then the birds left too.

I used to find golf balls in my field and it was a mystery because I was miles from a golf course. Then one day I saw a raven drop something and when I checked it was a golf ball. I am not sure if the bird was being playful or thought he was breaking an egg?

Magpies too - to a certain extent. If I enter a field or opening and there's a few magpies fussing around the willows in one corner - you can sure that's the corner I'm going to thoroughly glass first. They just seem to like company!

I know ravens follow wolf packs, waiting for a kill. I've also had single birds silently glide along only 20 ft above my big dog, when hiking open country after a recent snowfall. Maybe they think the dog will snuff something out from under the snow - like a chewed up deer/elk lagoon or something.

Personally, I'd never shoot a raven. Bad karma.

Same for me.

I always watch them when I am out. If I haven't seen many deer I usually mutter to them to help me out.

I often considered the presence of ravens to be an indicator of game being nearby, although sometimes I wonder if they're playing for the opposite team sometimes... Always flying by my tree stand to check me out.

"Shoo, raven. Bring me a big deer!" :D

Smart and cool birds. They used to pick up gravel from my parents driveway, then fly over and drop them out of the sky on top of our dogs house. It would bother the dog enough after awhile of being bombed by rocks he would hide in his house. Then they would land and eat his dog food right in front of him.

I never shoot them.

they are hard on calves in calving season, they pick out eyes and the rectums of new born calves

biggest moose predator
 

Here's the other side of the raven behavior story - told to me by a trapper that had lived nearly all of his life in the bush:

Apparently Fish n Wildlife used to send out surveys to registered trappers. One of the questions was what the trapper thot of the population of the various critters that lived along his trapline. If it was decreasing, holding steady or declining. He always marked moose as declining. Why? Because of the overabundance of ravens.

Overabundance of ravens because: in the early days of logging and oilfied activity, the camps would just throw all their garbage into the back corner of their compound and the ravens etc would clean up most of it. The ravens would then have a buffet all winter and their survival rates skyrocketed. Add to this the raven's life span is very long and, as mentioned, they are super intelligent. So now we have an over abundance of ravens.

Since the beginning of ungulates, ravens have always predated on ungulates' very young. Only now it's so much worse because of their overabundance. This trapper said he'd seen this on two different occasions: A raven would follow a moose that was about to calve, then, as the calf was coming out and the cow was incapacitated, the raven would peck out the eyes of the calf. The calf would die soon after, and the raven would have food. And this all happened shortly after the raven chicks hatched out. And we know for a fact this happens because farmers have complained of the same thing happening to their beef calves.

Hence the high number of cow moose without calves. And especially moose because they don't seek out seclusion when calving. They drop 'em wherever they happen to be. I can attest to that cuz I was driving along a highway one day and watched a cow lay down halfway accross a field and give birth.

Bottom line for me: eliminate every raven you can.

happened to me this am
 

About 30 ravens cruised overhead at first light to see where the hunters were.An hour later they are squealing on a WT buck that got itself shot.Win win for all concerned except the deer.Magpies do this all the time.Symbiotic relationship with man........very smart birds.Saw 2 adult bald eagles and a juvie picking at a road killed dead coyote.Ravens in Norse lore are Odin's messengers of impending death............Harold