Worcestershire Record No. 26 April 2009 p. 21

Harry Green

In recent years the numbers of Ravens seen throughout Worcestershire has increased dramatically. But where are they nesting? In a few quarries no doubt but there are so many Ravens about that they must, presumably, be nesting in trees or on buildings. But where? Ravens are often very early nesters and in the fastnesses of Wales are known to nest on cliffs and in trees with snow on the backs of incubating birds!

I am now fairly sure they nest in woodlands throughout the county. For instance they are seen regularly in the Drakes Broughton woods and in Tiddesley Wood, near Pershore, and I have seen them moving between these two woodland blocks. A good few years ago we were fairly sure they nested in the very tall Wellingtonias Sequoiadendron giganteum in Shrawley Wood.

Ravens are now seen quite often around villages and John Clarke has suggested they may be using the big Cedars of Lebanon Cedrus libani which often occur in churchyards, the grounds of large country houses, and in parklands (there is a famous avenue at Madresfield Court). As far as I know we do not have proof of this (although John may have secrets!) so I suggest a bit of lurking in these places to try and find proof of nesting would be interesting. The great flat ‘table tops’ of some of the old trees may appeal to Ravens

I write this partly because Ravens are certainly one of my favourite birds but also because it would be very useful to have confirmation of breeding for the BTO Atlas for which we are all collecting data. So if any reader finds evidence of breeding of Ravens I would be very pleased to hear from them.

Amongst my files I found this picture sent to me several years ago by Shaun Micklewright. Expand your searches to pylons and mobile phone masts!