I like to play golf with an orange golf ball and have lost quite a few to ravens at Queanbeyan GC over the last 3 years or so. One positive thing is that as long as you can verify your ball was taken (‘Kathy that crow has just flown off with your orange
ball’) you get to replace it with no penalty. Mostly occurs during the warmer weather, but I lost my first for several months yesterday. As far as I am aware no other balls were taken during the competition round. Back to a white ball for a while – at least
that decreases the odds of my ball in particular being taken.
Kathy
From:
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 5:59 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Discouragements
Overlooking the same golf course as your (Geoffrey’s) adventure, I have many times (actually 4 or 5 times) seen ravens pick up golfers’ balls and fly off with them. All the balls that I observed were white.
Ravens have only recently taken up on the fairways in front of my place . . . I witnessed a prolonged argument between regular Magpies and a bunch of Ravens when it seemed the lawn grubs were good eating. The Ravens won and have been regular on-ground ever
since.
Julian
www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/
From: Duncan McCaskill [
Sent: Wednesday, 3 June 2015 15:37
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Cc: canberra birds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Discouragements
Yes, Ravens do love balls, not just golf balls. Sometimes balls are even edible, such as this ball which was apparently seed filled, or at least filled with seed-like stuff that the Ravens liked to eat. Its not exactly a colourful ball.
The yellow ball shown in the inset is just a hollow plastic ball, but several Ravens were very excited by it and competed for it.
On 3 June 2015 at 14:58, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:
This general subject has been raised more than once in the past, but I might record that on my return this week, after many years, to the golf course (my aged person’s orienteering program being interrupted by a temporary medical condition) I found that on
two visits to Royal Narrabundah an A Raven picked up and dropped my ball, on the second occasion (today) picking it up again and flying off with it, out of sight. On each occasion the ball was orange. My companion suggested ‘they like coloured balls’, but
when I queried the evidence for that statement it amounted only to a single instance involving a yellow ball at Bowral some years ago. The problem now is that when one has difficulty locating one’s ball, one has a nagging suspicion that a bird might have
flown off with it. This adds to the other discouragements that frequently attend this particular activity. On Monday my (different) companion’s ball struck an Australian Wood Duck, not a surprising development, given the numbers grazing on the fairways.
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