NorthJersey

The raven has a special place in many mythologies: the Native American trickster, the companions of Odin in Norse mythology, and the midnight visitor in Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem.

Once numerous in New Jersey, they disappeared as a nesting bird in New Jersey in the 1920s until the early 1990s, when they began to breed once more in the Garden State, and their numbers have been increasing ever since.

The Jan. 10 meeting of the Montclair Bird Club will feature “Return of the Raven,” presented by writer and environmental consultant Rick Radis.

Radis' presentation will cover the historic status of the common raven in eastern North America from the late 1880s, its remarkable return in the 1990s, and its present status as a nesting species in many often surprising areas of New Jersey and other eastern states.

The common raven, Corvus corax, has the widest distribution of any of the Corvidae, the family that includes crows, jays, nutcrackers, magpies and related birds such as rooks, jackdaws, and choughs. It is also the largest and heaviest of the passerines, or perching birds -- and the smartest.

Since the early 1980s the population and perhaps the behavioral dynamics of the eastern common raven has begun to change. Rick Radis will explore the possible reasons as to why the common ravens have lost their shyness around humans and discuss how ravens interact with the other two species of corvids in the Northeast.

Rick Radis first watched birds as a child on family trips to Cape May and remembers early trips to the old heron rookery in Stone Harbor.

He is an editor, writer and environmental consultant who has worked on land and water preservation and as an endangered species specialist.

He is a past editor of NJ Birds, NJ Audubon Magazine and other conservation publications. His writing, editorial and photography have appeared in the New York Times, TNY, and many other national and regional publications.

The club's meeting on Jan. 10 begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Union Congregational Church in Montclair.

The meeting is open to the public. There is no admission fee.

Visit the MBC website at montclairbirdclub.org for maps and additional information.