I am reading on my porch when the quiet is broken by the heavy flap of a raven’s wings. He settles in the tall tree above the chicken coop. The nine hens and a single rooster are silent as per usual in the morning. They amble around, lazily pecking the ground. But then, the raven starts in. His caw pierces the air, startling the chickens and blasts the backyard peace like a foghorn, repeating until you can almost see the jagged soundwaves in the air.

The chickens burst into a clucking chorus and thrash their clumsy wings; a stark contrast to the metronome-consistent beat of the raven’s acutely pitched squawk. Suddenly, the raven is silent.

The chickens continue to sound the alarm, unfooled by their frustrating neighbour’s momentary reprieve. Each cluck boils in their bellies then erupts out of their throats, sending them backwards with the explosive auditory force. Moments pass. The hens are quiet; alert; expectant.

Then, a new call comes from the tree: a perfectly mirrored cluck!

The chickens are silent. The clucking from above is much louder than their own, so accurately rendered but somehow off...it is more controlled, more mechanical than their own, organic sound. I sense the chickens are thinking, “This will not do.” They burst back into speech, fireworks of sound from across the coop echoing through the backyard.

With each of the chicken’s pauses, the impostor clucks his impersonation from the tree.

I head to the enclosure, unable to concentrate on my book through all of the ruckus. “What are you on about, raven?” I call to the hidden miscreant, buried in leaves. He responds with another cluck and the chickens ripple their discontent across the pen. “What a commotion for a Monday morning,” I mutter, walking back to the porch.

It continues for a few minutes more, then, abruptly -complete silence. I glance back at the coop and see a flutter of wings on the fence. Is he in the coop? Surely the chickens would be losing it. I wait. Not a sound.

I guess I’ll enjoy the newfound peace. I pick up my book.

Then, a tree across the yard comes alive with yet another raven’s alien clicks which soon shift to the sound of a tap dripping! It sounds like a single water droplet, over and over again, round and full and wet. Then, the mimic of a running machine. He runs through what appears to be all of the sounds he knows. The whistling, discordant clicking he then lands on unsettles me; it makes me feel like the little girl from the movie “Signs”, though she was more self assured.

Just as I start to feel like I’m losing my grip on reality, the second raven drops out of the tree and thunders above my head, audibly slicing the air with his wings. I wonder, “Is he coming for me? “and I watch him closely, but he simply falls from the air to join the original disrupter above the chickens.

I expect another battle. But all is quiet.

What caused this absurd backyard vaudeville? Did you want to steal eggs? If so, why not be silent? Are you just harbingers of chaos disturbing the peace simply to stir things up?

Traditional native stories often depict ravens as tricksters, shifting otherwise settled worlds by asking pesky questions, provoking all of those around them, stealing the sun.

I look for the provocateurs, cloaked in branches, furtively plotting their next upheaval. They must be the ones from the stories.

Follow Melissa’s adventures on her blog: heartandspirit.blog