3-18-10 MRNP Raven Vandals

Keas are native alpine parrots to NZ--and they do indeed like to chew on things--antenna, wiper blades, etc.

Yeah, they can both observe, and excavate, as well! A few years ago we did a late spring ski ascent of Baker, bivying on lower Heliotrope on one of those great sandy tent sites. Before dinner that first afternoon we decided to do some yo-yo sking on the northwest slopes around the corner. Greg buried his big tupperware container of chicken & noodles next to the campsite, say 1' down. Yep, you guessed it. Before making our last descent back to camp, say from about 3-400' higher, I could see our campsite, and it didn't look quite right, a little messy and a small group of ravens dancing about. Of course we beelined it for camp, and yes, they'd dug up the container, pried off the lid and ate most of Greg's dinner - what was left was scattered about. Not being too clever ourselves, we had just covered up our packs with rocks. They hadn't gotten around to rolling the rocks off yet, having just a little easy snow digging to get the better prize!
Gerry H