For a week we had Mum and two teenage ravens visiting us with all their loud vocalizations. They found the bird baths and started coming for drinks, which was fine. Then they started bringing their food to clean/soften in the water. That was NOT fine.
It mucked up the water for all the other birds that used the baths.
So we tried immediately taking the food out of the bird bath (toast, cookies, chunks of fat, cheese slide etc etc) hoping they would learn not to bring their food, but that they were welcome to drink.
Didn't work.
So we tipped out the water, they continued to come, putting their head down flat in the bath to slurp up the remaining water. AND bring their food still.
Finally we put the dry baths on the porch.
Whether it was a coincident or not, other than hearing them at 5am, they haven't been back.
The two teenagers with a tinge of pink on their beak (used as a target for the parents feeding them) More obvious in the video.
Final act before being last seen - checking out the river rock and juniper
