(Note: this post originally published in February, 2011, after returning home from a visit to Yellowstone National Park)
Time for another “Fun Friday” post … one of those “just for fun” images/stories! Today’s post includes an image of an unlikely “thief”, caught in action, in Yellowstone NP. On my last day in the interior of the park, our group boarded a snowcoach for the 4+ hour ride from the Old Faithful area to Mammoth Hot Springs. During our travel, the snowcoach stopped at the Mud Pot area for a short break and walk around the mud pots, but you will see that there was also action in the parking lot!
No sooner than we had stopped, a small band of 5-6 Common Ravens (Corvus corax) flew in and began foraging over the parked snowmobiles there. As you can see, these guys were good! This raven shows his skill at unzipping a luggage pack on the back of one of the snowmobiles. Fortunately for the rider of this vehicle, there was no lunch packed! I might add that this bird knew exactly what he was doing and took no time at all to get inside the pack! And while this guy attacked this pack, the other ravens were equally busy invading other snowmobile packs … smart birds! We had been warned, before reaching the mudpots, to watch for the ravens. They have learned that a lot of snowmobiles have lunches packed in the packs, and have learned how to quickly open the various pockets and look for lunch!
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