![]() ![]() ![]() The most celebrated ravens in the world live at the Tower of London, on the River Thames, an 11th-century walled enclosure of towers and buildings that houses the Crown Jewels and that over the ages has functioned as a royal palace, a zoo, a prison, and a place of execution. Nonhuman people, but people all the same. Watching them for any length of time has the same effect as watching great apes: It’s hard not to start thinking of them as people. Massive black corvids with ice-pick beaks, dark eyes, and shaggy-feathered necks, they have a distinctive presence and possess a fierce intelligence. ![]() But much of that magic emanates from the living birds themselves. They have been seen variously as gods, tricksters, protectors, messengers, and harbingers of death for thousands of years. Sometimes I do, and sometimes it does it’s a moment of cross-species communication that never fails to thrill. I can make a passable imitation of a raven’s low, guttural croak, and whenever I see a wild one flying overhead I have an irresistible urge to call up to it in the hope that it will answer back. ![]()
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