Raven in Helsinki, Finland (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

25 November 2025

A week ago I was thrilled to see a raven “herding” a red-tailed hawk into my Oakland neighborhood. The raven had claimed the airspace over the Bloomfield side of the East Busway and was making the hawk fly back to where he came from. No red-tails welcome here!

We have so few ravens in Pittsburgh that I rarely see this kind of action but if I lived in California, as Vance Crofoot does, I’d have a lot of opportunities to watch raven territorial behavior against predators and other ravens.

In this three minute video you’ll see a raven defending his territory against an intruding male. It’s amazing that both birds posture and make soft sounds rather than loud raucous noises.

p.s. Vance Crofoot names the ravens he watches all the time. It’s amazing that he can tell who is who.