The first sound a raven named Huxley learned to mimic was the distinctively loud sneeze of his B.C. rescuer.
Dayna Slater, the founder of Good Caws Crow Rescue in Prince George, says she has near-constant allergies—meaning her self-described “obnoxious” sneeze is a familiar sound around the rescue.
And about a year and a half ago, the raven she rescued when he was a fledgling let out a pitch-perfect imitation.
“He started with the sneezing,” Slater told CTV News. “He hears it all the time and that was the first thing he picked up on.”
Slater started the rescue because of her lifelong affinity with corvids, including magpies, crows and ravens like Huxley.
“I felt that corvids were being overlooked, and I didn’t like that,” she said.
“I’ve always loved these birds. I’ve always had a relationship with these birds, and I wanted to do something to help them.”
The organization’s main focus is on rescuing and rehabilitating orphaned and injured birds, releasing them back into the wild whenever possible.
Huxley has become one of the rescue’s permanent residents and ambassadors because he can’t fly. When Slater was called to rescue the raven, he had a broken wing from a fall from a nest. Because his wing never quite healed properly, he can’t extend it fully.
But it hasn’t slowed him down, and Slater documents some of his daily routine on the rescue’s social media channels.
He sleeps indoors every night and is taken back outside in the morning.
“He goes out to his great big pen with his best friend, a crow named Bobbi,” Slater said.
“He goes through his entire vocabulary, so the entire neighborhood knows that he’s awake.”
In addition to sneezing and saying his name, Huxley also likes to repeat the phrase “that’s not cool,” according to Slater.
“It’s just it’s a weird combination of noises coming out of the backyard these days,” she said.
Eating, having a bath, playing with wand toys, chatting, and hanging out with Bobby and Slater fill up the rest of his days.
While Huxley was injured and in need of rescue after falling from his nest, Slater stresses that most fledgeling corvids are not. Another key element of the rescue’s work is educating the public about the birds.
Corvids don’t take flight from their nests but learn how to fly “from the ground up,” Slater explained. Seeing a baby crow or raven falling from a nest or hopping around on the ground alone doesn’t mean it’s injured or orphaned—it’s just part of the process of the baby bird “learning to be a bird,” Slater said, adding that the parents are likely close by keeping watch.
More information about Good Caws Crow Rescue, including how to identify whether a fledgling is in need of rescue, is available online.
