Читать книгу The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London - Christopher Skaife - Страница 11

As I mentioned, we currently have seven ravens at the Tower. We always have a minimum of six – as decreed, according to legend, by Charles II. These are our magnificent seven.

Munin

Female

Entered Tower service 18 May 1995

Current age: Twenty-three (age on arrival: six weeks)

Presented by Mrs Joyce Ross

Named by Ravenmaster David Cope

Raven Munin is currently the oldest serving raven at the Tower.* Named after one of Odin’s ravens in Norse mythology, she has led what you might call a colourful life.

She is incredibly intelligent – she can solve scientific tests in record time. She is also tough and she is brave: she loves to get as high up around the Tower as she possibly can, which has caused me no end of problems, having to clamber up after her. She’s broken her wing twice and is now permanently on medication to treat her arthritis. She’s had three partners during her time with us – two of them now dead – and so is affectionately known to me and my assistants as the Black Widow.

I’ll be honest: Munin and I have something of a troubled relationship. Basically, she doesn’t like me. In fact, sometimes I think she actually hates me. She’s certainly been giving me the runaround for years. Research suggests that ravens can recognise human faces, and I can only assume that I did something horrendous in my early days as the old Ravenmaster’s assistant and Munin has never forgiven me.

If you ever visit the Tower, you can easily identify Munin because she’s the bird who hops off in the opposite direction whenever she sees me. After many years of niggling, tussling and negotiation, I would describe ours as a relationship of mutual grudging respect.

Merlin/Merlina

Female (but thought male for the first five years of her life)

Entered Tower service May 2007

Current age: Twelve (age on arrival: one)

Place of origin: Somewhere in Wales

Presented by Anne Bird, Barry Swan Rescue Centre

Named by previous owner and officially still known to the Tower as Merlin (renamed Merlina by Ravenmaster Chris Skaife)

Merlina – or Merlin, as she was first known – was found by the side of a road in Wales. She was adopted by a family of bird-lovers who built her an aviary and looked after her until she became too difficult to handle. She is not a bird suited to a quiet suburban life. Her caretakers gave her to the Swan Rescue Centre in Barry, Wales, where she quickly became renowned for throwing tantrums, mimicking other birds, and randomly squawking out a primitive ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’ at passersby. After she refused to have anklets placed on her and withdrew all cooperation in her interactions with her carers, the Rescue contacted us at the Tower in desperation. And here she has been, perfectly happy, ever since.

Unlike my relationship with Munin, Merlina and I are close. Very close. Indeed – after many years – she has bonded with me and two of my assistants and is always very friendly towards us. She is not, however, friendly towards anybody else – including our fellow Yeoman Warders.

Over the past few years Merlina has become quite a celebrity. She has her own dedicated followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. She receives gifts and cards and letters from well-wishers and has appeared countless times on television and in newspaper and magazine articles. She likes playing with sticks while rolling on her back, doing forward rolls, calling out to the crows to come and play with her, stealing stuff from unsuspecting members of the public, playing in the snow, playing dead, drinking water out of the fountain, washing crisps if she doesn’t like the flavour, emptying the bins on the endless hunt for food, hunting mice, and stalking pigeons.

Merlina could fly off to a new life if she so desired, but due to the nature of our bonding, and with a bit of careful flight-feather trimming, we’ve managed to keep her here at the Tower. She is our most free-spirited bird; she’s also my closest friend among the ravens.

In many ways, Merlina is a bit of a loner: she refuses to socialise with any of the other ravens. I think of her as the Tower Princess. If another raven goes anywhere near her, she hops along to find me to seek my protection, often bringing me little treats to share, usually rotten meat or rats’ tails. Her favourite activity is to sit with me in the Bloody Tower sentry box and fall asleep while I gently stroke her feathers. Whatever you do, do not try this if you visit her. Not if you value your fingers.

Erin

Female

Entered Tower service 2006

Current age: Twelve (age on arrival: six weeks)

Place of origin: Yatton, Somerset

Presented by Mr Martin Harris

Named by Ravenmaster Derrick Coyle

It’s said that ravens mate for life, but in my experience Raven Erin’s partnership with Raven Rocky is a rather more complex process than is often assumed by us humans. What I can say is that Erin and Rocky like to perch together, fly together, walk together, and preen together. They’re a classic couple in many ways – and in this partnership, it is Erin who most definitely wears the trousers.

Erin may be one of our smallest ravens, but she is by far the noisiest. She likes nothing better first thing in the morning than craawing and cronking at the top of her voice and annoying the residents of the Tower. She’s not, shall we say, a bird who is backward in coming forward. She will chat away forever, is extremely boisterous, and loves to pester the other ravens. One of her favourite games is to invade another bird’s territory, pick a fight, cause all sorts of commotion, and then suddenly back off. With Erin, I often find myself having to assume the role of policeman. If she’s on Tower Green, for example, squawking at Merlina, I’ll intervene with a wag of my finger, tell her to move along, and then off she goes.

Erin and I are not exactly close, but we get along fine. We have a few volunteers at the Tower who like to assist with our work with the birds, and over the years Erin has befriended one or two of them, whom she graciously allows to feed her the occasional nut or biscuit.

Many of our American visitors like to point out that the name Erin is Irish, though I like to point out in return that it is in fact a Hiberno-English derivative of the Irish word ‘Éirinn’, meaning Ireland, and no, she’s not from Ireland. She’s from Somerset. The naming of the ravens can sometimes seem nonsensical – and indeed paradoxical and ironic, as is the case with Erin’s partner, the wonderfully though inappropriately named Rocky.

Rocky

Male

Entered Tower service July 2011

Current age: Ten (age on arrival: three)

Place of origin: Yatton, Somerset

Presented by Mr Martin Harris

Named by Ravenmaster Chris Skaife

Traditionally our ravens were named after the person who presented them to the Tower. Thus, Raven Edward, who was presented to the Tower around 1890 and who was named after Colonel Edward Treffry from the Honourable Artillery Company. Or one of my favourites, the legendary Raven Edgar Sopper, presented in 1923 and named after Colonel Sopper. All of our ravens these days are bred outside the Tower by a small number of recognised breeders, and acquired by the Tower as and when we need them, so our naming practices have had to change. We once had a Ronald Raven, for example, so named by viewers of the children’s television programme Blue Peter. We’ve had ravens named Cedric, Sandy, Mabel, Pauline, and – in tribute to the character played by Tony Robinson in the TV comedy Blackadder – Baldrick.

Rocky is in fact named after the former Ravenmaster, Rocky Stones, and not after the boxer played by Sylvester Stallone, which is probably for the best because Rocky is most definitely not a fighter. Admittedly he does have a distinctive short fat beak, which makes him look a bit as if he has a broken nose and is about to land a heavy punch on you. He’s big and he likes to swagger around, and he does his best to protect Erin when she gets into trouble, but he’s really a very shy, sweet-natured sort of a bird. In fact, he’s a bit of a softy. He follows Erin around like a little puppy, is completely uninterested in me or in the public, and likes nothing more than to spend his time snuggling up to her, though how on earth he puts up with her incessant squawking I have absolutely no idea.

Jubilee II

Male

Entered Tower service May 2013

Current age: Five (age on arrival: six weeks)

Place of origin: Yatton, Somerset

Presented by Mr Martin Harris

Named Jubilee by popular demand

Jubilee II started out his life at the Tower as a stand-in. In 2012, in honour of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Tower authorities thought it might be a nice idea to give Her Majesty a raven as a present. We’d keep it here on her behalf and look after it for her. Shortly after presenting the bird, I went away on holiday to the United States. No sooner had my flight landed than I received a frantic phone call from one of my colleagues.

‘Chris, there’s a bit of a problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Two ravens have died.’

‘Which ravens?’

‘Jubilee and Gripp.’

‘Died?’

‘Killed.’

‘Foxes?’

‘Foxes.’

‘So you’re telling me I’ve just come all this way to the US on holiday and the Queen’s new raven has been killed by a fox?’

‘Yep. Sorry, mate.’

It was not a great start to my long-awaited holiday, but fortunately we were able to acquire two replacement ravens, whom we named Jubilee II and Gripp II.

Jubilee II is currently Munin’s partner. I say currently because when Munin dies I might try to pair Jubilee II with Merlina. Merlina has recently started to allow Jubilee II to spend a little time with her on Tower Green, which is very unusual. Merlina, as I have said, is not a bird who usually tolerates the company of other ravens. There’s a bit of an age difference between Merlina and Jubilee II, but they seem to get on, and I can certainly see why. Jubilee II is very much the strong, silent type: well-behaved, well-groomed. Perfect boyfriend material. I think of Jubilee as a knight of the Tower.

Gripp II

Male

Entered Tower service May 2013

Current age: Five (age on arrival: six weeks)

Place of origin: Yatton, Somerset

Presented by Mr Martin Harris

Named by Ravenmaster Chris Skaife

Gripp is the opposite of Jubilee: tiny and rather frail. We assume that Gripp is male – but I rather fancy that he is in fact a she. It wouldn’t be the first time that one of our male birds turned out to be female. As I have mentioned, Merlina started out life as Merlin, and there have doubtless been other examples of mistaken identity during the history of the Tower ravens. The sexing of birds is notoriously difficult, even for vets, never mind for Yeoman Warders. Ravens not only lack external sexual organs, like most species of birds, but the male and female are almost identical in appearance, and there are no great differences in behaviour. It’s not as if the males have brighter plumage or different feather patterns, or wattles or combs or crests or leg spurs that might help you distinguish them from females. To the untrained eye, the only noticeable difference is that the male ravens tend to have a slightly longer middle toe and a thicker bill; but then again, we’ve had female birds before with great thick bills, and measuring the difference in ravens’ toes is not a hobby for the faint-hearted. Handling the birds can make them extremely stressed at the best of times, so really the only way to determine Gripp’s sex would be to take a feather and have it DNA tested. Since Gripp seems perfectly happy as s/he is, and because we treat all the birds equally here at the Tower anyway, whatever their gender, there seems little point in putting him/her through the stress. So, for the moment Gripp remains a he – a rather timid and shy he, admittedly, who requires a little bit more looking after than some of the other birds. I have a bit of a soft spot for him, and don’t like to see him being picked on or bullied by the others.

Harris

Male

Entered Tower service May 2016

Current age: Two (age on arrival: six weeks)

Place of origin: Yatton, Somerset

Presented by Miss Lori Burchill

Named by Ravenmaster Assistant Shady Lane

Harris is the youngest and the biggest of our current birds. You can tell he’s young – if you can get close enough – because the inside of his mouth is pink. The raven mouth turns black as the bird ages, in much the same way as our hair turns grey. Harris will be counted as a juvenile for about three years before coming into full maturity, though he’s already started displaying signs of adult behaviour. Just a couple of weeks ago he spent three days up on the rooftops of the Tower, checking things out, only returning to be with the other ravens because he was hungry. I fancy he’s going to keep me rather busy in the years to come.

Harris is named after Martin Harris, a breeder who presented us with more than a dozen ravens during his lifetime – including most of our current birds – and who was a real character, and greatly loved by all of Team Raven.

Harris was in fact hatched on the very day of our old friend Martin’s funeral, which I attended down in Somerset with my deputy Ravenmaster, Shady Lane, both of us in full uniform. I can well remember driving down a few weeks later to collect the new little birdling, which was a bittersweet moment for us all, and we decided there and then to name the bird after Martin, as a reminder of the many people who love the ravens and who have been involved in their well-being.

I hope and trust that Harris has a long and happy life ahead of him.

* The longest-ever serving raven at the Tower was James Crow, who entered service around 1880 and didn’t pass away until 1924, making him an incredible forty-four years old. Ravens in the wild would be lucky to live into their teens or twenties. We would of course never name a raven James Crow these days – times, thank goodness, have changed.