corvidaid. caring for corvids and other wildlife
 You can see Matt is having to prop his arm up, Mavis can get a heavy girl after a while!

Dark Mavis

AKA ‘The Celebrity’

Dark Mavis is not a rescued bird, but she is a big part of Corvid Aid, so I will include her here.

I had wanted a captive bred raven chick to rear and to train up for many years, but could not afford the silly prices they went for. Luckily my good friend Mike promised to let me have one of his when his captive-bred pair had their first clutch.

The news that Bub and Bindi had laid eggs came as quite a shock as I had resigned myself to the fact I was never going to get to care for my own raven! When the eggs hatched, Mike had the babies DNA sexed and it turned out there were two males and a female. I told Mike that the people who were paying for theirs should be given the choice of which gender they prefered. Consequently, I was left with the female, as they both wanted males.

I already had an idea of the name, I wanted something special as this bird was really important to me so I decided on naming her after a character from Mansun’s (my favourite band) first album ‘Attack of the Grey Lantern’. Dark Mavis it was! A perfect name for my little lady!

Mavis is turning out to be a fantastic bird, she’s picked up everything I’ve taught her really quickly and was soon perfect on the glove, so obedient! She was a like a breath of fresh air compared to birds of prey I’ve trained in the past! No messing about cutting food back, she does things because she wants to, although a bit of bribery does help sometimes!

Off the glove she can be a very strong willed girl and is prone to the most fantastic temper tantrums! She can be quite stroppy at times – just like her mum, I guess – but I like this about her, it gives her bags of character! She’s very similar in temprement to Odin – only on a much larger scale!

I am currently getting Mavis used to being handled by different people because it would be really nice to get her some ‘acting’ work at some point, as well as utilising her potential to help teach people about Corvids. One of Mavis’s brothers ‘Bran’ has gone to live with Lloyd & Rose Buck – well-known bird trainers who have been on TV on many occasions. Their birds are often used for film/TV work so expect to see Bran on your screens very soon!

LATEST CAWS

like tweets, only a little louder!