Sunset Camp Raven

BirdNote^®
Sunset Camp Raven
Written by J. Drew Lanham

This is BirdNote. I’m J. Drew Lanham, an ornithologist, naturalist, and writer.

Today at Sunset Camp in the Blue Ridge Foothills of South Carolina, coincidence and bliss converge when a Common Raven flies from the north.

          [Common Raven]

I marvel whenever I see these great black birds this far south as it’s on the very edge of raven range. Despite the name, they aren’t common here. I smile in the luck of "OCK! OCK! OCK!"

          [Common Raven]

There! Perched on a dead white pine lookout, maybe forty yards from me. It croaks again...

          [Common Raven]

… and then to double down on the surprise, it flies in to check me out. It looks down, then wheels on wings I can hear as if within inches of my ear. It flies back north, from whence it came. Croaks again.

          [Common Raven]

Gone.

When birds happen,
The watcher becomes the watched.
The things with feathers become gods
The only sin is not noticing.
A raven's croak falls from the sky
as blessing.

For BirdNote, I’m J. Drew Lanham.

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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Common Raven ML137574 recorded by Gerrit Vyn, ML39233981 recorded by Jay McGowan, and ML107326 recorded by Wil Hershberger.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote October 2026
Narrator: J. Drew Lanham

ID# LanhamJD-03-2026-10-27      LanhamJD-03