It was a similar time of year, the sun had been below the horizon for quite a while and when it did rise it came only for minutes not hours. That's part of why we found ourselves stopped and hanging out, the feeling of standing in the sun's rays no matter how weak give off a life confirming glow that a person craves.
At fifty some degrees below zero the three mile an hour breeze was nothing to put one's face into, nor the front zipper of the body condom (snowmobile suit). That's why we were facing east not south. Chuck has the good eyes and he saw it first.
Anch-town Daily News Story
"Hey look at that" is meaningless when you can't see whatever "that" is.
I squinted, Steve squinted, Chuck said, "I think it's a raven".
Sure enough from way over by the Refuge came a tiny dot. Not an airplane as there are no airplanes, no aircraft of any kind. No contrails, no hint of aircraft, no faint hum of jet engines. We'd seen no song birds, no squirrels, no deer, no caribou, and thankfully no bear. Fox and ravens were all that lived as far as I could tell and I hadn't figured out which eats which, and from way over near the border of ANWAR came a raven not thirty feet off the ground.
The raven came without fanfare, and without flapping of wings, just tilting them slightly to adjust and catch the breeze to best advantage for staying aloft. It flared it's wings slightly to hop over us at a safe fifty feet and let out an "awwwwwwwwwk" that could have meant anything and continued on.
Stevie commented on the way it was following the cat track (cut from the bulldozer in the snow) and it was. Looking for something, anything, to eat was our guess.
Now I read that scientists have figured out there is often a symbiotic relationship between carnivores and crows, (see link above the orange cat tracks). The scientists quote ancient fables of the Inuit reading signals from the raven leading the starving hunter to the deer.
I'd think this knowledge a lot more fact based and common than just relegated to the supernatural fables of indigenous folk. I'd think every Native American hunter knew well that ravens keep tabs on all animals waiting for prey to become carrion, or predator to prey upon. Wether flying directly from one to the other is some kind of signal I don't know. I do know that it's widely understood in current times amongst coyotee hunters that the approach of a crow or raven might well foretell the coyotee.