Not an award-winning image of a Common Raven, taken on 12 August 2020 in Chehalis, Pierce County. I was waiting for Erika, and serendipitously took a photo of one of two ravens from a great distance, maybe a half-mile. The photo is interesting, however, because it clearly shows the raven’s wedge-shaped tail; also you can see that both first primaries, those closest to the secondaries, are molting. This molt indicates my raven is at least a second-year bird.
No primaries are molted the first time a raven go into their First Basic Plumage, which is complete during the summer of their second year. During their second year, ravens molt again from late April or May to mid-December. Primaries are replaced in order from the first to the outer-most 10th. In Michigan, raven primaries are replaced at four to six day intervals and take four weeks to reach their maximum length (Boarman and Heinrich 2020).
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