A Rare Raven Took Summer Vacation In Atlantic Highlands

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Story and photos by Joseph Sapia
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – The regulars that meet most early afternoons at the Municipal Harbor have not seen their friend in about two weeks.
They wonder, Nevermore?
“It would be a shame,” said Mike Zlata, 59, a retired copper mill worker who lives in the borough. “He was pretty tame for a wild bird.”
Their friend is a raven – an all-black bird with a deep croak, standing about 2-feet-tall with a wingspan of more than 4 feet. The species, immortalized in Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, “The Raven,” is smart, inquisitive and friendly.
“I actually thought it was somebody’s pet, I’ve never seen one before,” said Kevin Clancy, 62, a borough resident who sits with the group under a small open shelter. “He would look over the edge (of the shelter) at us.”
“One day he was eating out of Richie’s hand, Cheez Doodles,” said Zlata, speaking of a friend feeding the bird.
The bird began showing up in late July or early August.
“We call him he, (but) we don’t know what he was,” Zlata said.
Perhaps not the gender. But when the big bird was around, it was pretty obvious what kind of bird: maybe being harassed by crows, hopping conspicuously, or calling loudly – all common occurrences involving ravens.
“Boy, you can hear that thing,” said Clancy, who is visually impaired, but could clearly pick out the bird’s call. “It howled.”
Clancy imitated the loud call and began laughing.
NEWS-ATLANTICHIGHLANDS-RAVEN2“Ravens are not common around this area, but they have been expanding their range in New Jersey in the last decade,” said Colette Buchanan, a Monmouth Beach resident who is president of the Monmouth County Audubon Society. “They have been seen in small numbers, usually one or two, in Monmouth County the last few years, including at Sandy Hook, over Huber Woods and around the Monmouth County Landfill.”
Once a common bird in New Jersey and the East, ravens became near-extinct in the state.
“By the Civil War, ravens were rare in the East,” said Rick Radis, a North Jersey naturalist who wrote an article, “The Return of the Raven,” on the New Jersey eBird website in 2014. “They were shot as vermin.”
From about 1970 to 1990, Pete Bacinski, the retired director of New Jersey Audubon Society’s Sandy Hook Bird Observatory, only saw ravens in two New Jersey locations, both in the northwestern part of the state – one in Sussex County, one in Warren County.
“Twenty years, I got to see two,” Bacinski said. “Now, you can see them two, three, four times a year.
“The birds are showing up everywhere,” Bacinski said. “You drive along the highway, you’ll see one. Now, it’s not rare to see a raven.”
Bacinski lives in Atlantic Highlands, but he did not see the local raven. He said he saw a raven at Sandy Hook in the spring.
Buchanan noted a pair of ravens “was seen frequently” at Sandy Hook in the spring, “exhibiting courtship behavior and appeared to be looking for a nest site out there.”
A raven lands on a piling earlier this month at the Atlantic Highlands Municipal Harbor, where it was often seen for a few weeks.
A raven lands on a piling earlier this month at the Atlantic Highlands Municipal Harbor, where it was often seen for a few weeks.

“However, a group of crows would routinely mob them and chase them off,” Buchanan said. “It is possible that the birds in Atlantic Highlands are the same birds. Perhaps they found a suitable home in the hills of the Highlands or Middletown.”
Since about the early 1990s, ravens have been rebounding in New Jersey, something Radis speculated was because hunting declined, along with eastern ravens became less fearful of humans. Also, they like nesting in utility towers, Radis said.
“The ravens have taken advantage of so many cell towers around,” Radis said. “I’m wowed (that) ravens have come back.”
Now, they breed in most of New Jersey’s 21 counties, Radis said. He said last year there was a confirmed nest near the Garden State Parkway at the boundary of Monmouth and Middlesex counties. And nesting birds may stay year-round, Radis said.

“I think it depends on food (if they stay all year),” Radis said. “They’re opportunists. They’re so smart.”
Buchanan was more sure in her answer, that local ravens “are around all year, they do not migrate.”
Ravens will eat such things as dead animals or seek food in trash bins, Radis said. At the harbor, the guys would feed the raven such things as cherries, watermelon and grapes.
The raven would also eat the food of Daisy, a 2-year-old border collie-miniature Eskimo owned by Mike Terefenko, 72, a retired maintenance manager from Middletown. The raven and Daisy got along.
“He was very friendly,” Clancy said. “Only when people walked by, he would get nervous.”
One boater noted the bird’s creepiness, calling it an “evil bird,” according to the group. The boater, who did not want to do a formal interview for this story, said sailors such as himself are superstitious.
“He wouldn’t walk up if the bird was over here,” Zlata said. Poe’s poem, too, may have
added to the creepiness. It visited a house at night, repeating the word, “Nevermore.”
Perhaps the local bird was creepy on first sight because of how large and fearless it was, but it also had a comic side. Once, the bird was pulling flowers from planters on the harbor fence.
“He was dropping them on the ground, like he was playing with them,” Zlata said.
“Like he was looking for something,” Clancy said.
“A mischievous bird,” Zlata said.
But Radis simply said, “They’re smart enough to get bored,” so maybe it was pulling flowers to kill time. Ravens are members of the same genus as crows, Corvus – a genus of smart birds. For example, if there is some human activity, crows may stop by to check it out, Radis said.
“Common ravens are very intelligent birds,” Buchanan said. “Experiments have demonstrated that they can solve problems, including pulling food up with a string, without having been taught to do so.
“Ravens are also playful and inquisitive, especially young ravens,” Buchanan said. “They certainly learn food sources, including human, and return to a good source.”
About mid-August, the raven disappeared, according to the group. The group wonders what happened to the uncommon visitor.
“Could have been just passing through,” Clancy said.
But the raven’s disappearance may be a simple one – they wander. Bacinski figured this raven was simply hanging out at the harbor for a while.
“They’re wanderers, moving around,” Bacinski said. “I guess nomadic is a good word.”
“They do move around a lot,” Radis said.
Clancy said he had looked forward to seeing the raven, to whom he would say, “Nevermore, nevermore.”
Since the raven has not been around, his memory remains alive in the group’s stories, the bird unforgotten kind of like an old poem.