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Living World

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

The Living World

Getting up close and personal with wild nature in Britain and beyond.

Intimate encounters and extraordinary observations of wild nature in Britain and beyond.

Living World: Winter Ravens

Winter Ravens

BBC Radio 4 - Living World, Winter Ravens

Lindsey Chapman updates this Living World on a winter raven roost in Shropshire. From 2010

Lindsey Chapman updates a Living World from 2010. Lionel Kelleway travels to Shropshire where the raven is recovering from years of persecution and where a large roost now occurs.

The raven is both agile and majestic in flight but shrouded in mystery, superstition and folk law. How was it that our biggest member of the crow family, a bird once protected as an important scavenger in ancient times, was then persecuted almost to extinction in the British Isles, with less that 1000 pairs clinging onto a precarious future in few remote hills in upland Britain?  In this Living World from 2010,  Lionel Kelleway travels to the syperstones in Shropshire where thankfully the raven is making a remarkable comeback. Here he meets up with Leo Smith and Tom Wall from the Shropshire Raven Study Group, a group who have been studying these magnificent birds for nearly 20 years. As they walk to an old raven nest in wet woodland, they encounter many ravens on the wing. But the tide has turned and now Shropshire is home to a remarkable wildlife spectacle, a raven roost in a private woodland where Lionel is chorused by over 60 ravens wheeling and displaying in the gathering dusk. 

Since the programme was broadcast, the Shropshire Raven Study group has completed it's work. In this revised episode wildlife presenter Lindsey Chapman updates the listener with this corvid success story. 

Produced by Andrew Dawes

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