Feral Golf Balls

Welcome to Raven Watcher. My first post will reflect the theme of the blog's title. Others may or may not. I hope you enjoy the blog.

"feral: of or relating to a wild beast" --Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

Feral Golf Balls

A few years back, while mowing the lawn, I heard a "thunk" which brought the mower to a halt. I tipped the mower up and found a golf ball wedged between the blade of the mower and the mower housing. I pried it out (after disconnecting the spark plug of course) and added the golf ball to my collection in the wood shed. I had started putting them there after finding the fourth or fifth golf ball in my yard. Up to the point of saving them I couldn't understand how the "same" golf ball kept showing up in different places in the garden. I had concluded that red squirrels were mistaking the golf ball for an egg, taking it from wherever I had put it and dropping it somewhere else when they figured out that they had been duped by the hard round object.

Now, after adding my eighth golf ball to the collection it dawned on me that this was not the work of red squirrels. Foxes? We had one living under the deck for a while. But where was this fox getting the golf balls? We did have a blueberry barrens a half mile up the road and I had seen a fellow practicing his golf swing up there. Red squirrels do not have a range that large, I didn't think, but foxes might. Then I remembered the raven I had seen once in the overgrown horse pasture out back.

It was in March and I was working at my desk which overlooks the rear of my property and there was a raven standing on the ground amidst the stalks of dried grass and goldenrod. It was the first time I had seen a raven in the yard. They fly over, I hear them often, but never had I seen one one the ground here. What was it doing? It was not there by accident--ravens do nothing casual. It appeared casual; ravens often do. Don't believe it. It walked about in the stiff, somewhat royal gait, of a raven on the ground, a few times picking in the grass, apparently finding nothing. Perhaps it was looking for voles (meadow mice) to have for lunch, though its method appeared too casual for a vole hunt. Soon it flew away leaving my mystery unsolved.

The eighth "feral" golf ball jarred my memory of the raven into consciousness and I concluded that the raven is the one planting golf balls in my hard. There is a course two miles away (as the raven flies). Two miles is nothing for a raven and it nests within a quarter mile of my house.

I brought this question to my golfing buddy at work: Did he think it was possible that the ravens could be picking up golf balls and caching them in my yard? He definitely thought it was. He told of a time when he was playing with a friend who hit a nice tee shot landing it near the green. After he had teed off they walked down into a dip and then up the other side toward the green where his friend's golf ball was nowhere to found. A movement in the rough caught their eye and a fox was seen trotting off with his friend's ball in his mouth.

Another time a seagull swooped down and grabbed a ball from the green. It flew over to the macadam drive and dropped it there to "smash" the golf ball and eat its contents. Perhaps you have noticed how, when gulls do this, they drop the item and drop down right after it so that other gulls don't steal their booty. The gull was surprised and had to do evasive action when the "egg" bounced up half way back to the height from which it was dropped.

I have concluded that ravens have been caching golf balls in my yard. That doesn't mean that I have seen them do it. In fact I have never but this once seen a raven on the ground in my yard. But that doesn't mean they don't do it. We know that ravens cache food and we know that ravens are no fools. It is unlikely that ravens are going to be caching food in my yard while anyone is watching.

I have my money on the ravens as the planter of golf balls in my yard. The ravens probably do a lot of things while I am not watching. My collection of golf balls is up to 14 now.