By Bob Dolgan
Cover photo credit: Jeff Skrentny

A live interview between the author and Kyle is available here.

Last Monday, as schools prepared to close and society was about to change precipitously, a common raven flew south along the coast of southwest Michigan. Well out of its range, it skirted the tops of woodlands and dunes as it made its way south along Lake Michigan. The winds were light and temperatures in the 30s as it approached the airspace above Indiana Dunes State Park in Porter County.

On the same day, Kyle Wiktor was standing at the park’s observation tower when the wandering raven made its way into view from the east.

“I first saw a dark corvid-looking bird and thought, ‘What’s this a crow?’” Kyle recalls. “But it was an awfully big bird, with a long wedge-shaped tail and a big thick bill.”

Then the bird made a sound that was pure raven: a gurgling croak that started somewhere way in the back of its throat.

“It vocalized a couple of times, and I said ‘I guess this is happening,’” Kyle adds.

Kyle ran to an open spot behind the tower, got out his camera and pressed record just as an American crow began harassing its larger Corvidae relative (Corvidae is a family of birds that includes ravens, crows, jays and magpies). The subsequent video, while a bit distant, captures the large size of the raven and the sound of its distinctive call.

The sighting is believed to be just the fourth of a common raven in Indiana in the past 100 years. There’s a record in the Indiana Dunes from 1919 and another from nearby Miller Beach dating to 1953. The other record? Captured by Kyle Wiktor himself one year and three days prior, at the same spot. But the story doesn’t end there.

“I didn’t expect this at all,” Kyle said by phone a few days later on the 19th, “but yeah, holy crap, it happened again with two.”

This time on a foggy day, two ravens emerged from the east and flew toward the tower.

“I heard a bird calling from the east and said, ‘No way this is happening again,’” Kyle says.

The pair landed in a tree about a quarter-mile away before crows showed up and harassed them into moving on. That’s now six raven records in Indiana in the past century or so, with four of them belonging to Kyle.

“I walked over to the same spot where I recorded the video, at ground level by the blowout area,” says Kyle, “and much to my surprise two came into view. I looked into my binos, and the tail, wingspan and bill all pointed to raven for both individuals.”

For the third year, Kyle is serving as the counter for Indiana Dunes’ Longshore Flight Survey. Each day from March 1 through late May, he rises before dawn to count birds at the Longshore Tower.

“If it’s a really strong wind and pretty cold, I’ll stand next to the tower instead of on top of it,” he says. “We’re having a heat wave when it’s in the low 40s.”

The tower produces some stunning counts—thousands of red-winged blackbirds or common grackles on a single day are not uncommon. But the appearance of ravens has been the headline story the past two years. Ravens are widespread across North America, Eurasia and Africa, but the nearest regularly occurring ravens are approximately 150 miles away in Michigan. Whether there were two ravens in Indiana this week or three remains unclear.

“I’ve heard a couple different people say they believe that common ravens are increasing in population and slowly expanding their range,” Kyle says. “It’s a slow thing but more and more reports in Michigan seem to be a little farther and farther south.”

All three of these presumed wanderers from Michigan flew in from the east and disappeared well off to the west, just as last year’s bird did. One wonders if they made their way into Illinois, where a raven sighting would be just as astonishing.

For now, it’s back to counting typical birds such as scaups, mergansers and gulls. Things won’t change much for Kyle as he stands alone out at the tower, even as Covid-19 sends shock waves around the world. Indeed, this might be one of the few virus-proof jobs left. If the state park had been closed, as Illinois parks have been this week, the sightings may not have happened.

“I don’t have much exposure to a lot of people,” he says with a laugh.

Click here to learn more about the Indiana Dunes Longshore Birding Count. Email the author of this post at ouzelfan@gmail.com.

Covid Corvids: Rare raven spotted at Indiana Dunes this week