Seen at NFL Ravens’ stadium: Actual ravens

The Baltimore Ravens aren’t yet roosting at M&T Bank Stadium, but the ravens are. Two of the NFL team’s feathered namesakes have been seen perched atop a light tower there — a first, apparently, for the clever birds who usually eschew city life. Yet there the ravens were on June 20, sitting on a metal column on the southeast side of the stadium as bicyclist Eddie Smith passed by.

“I looked up, saw them and thought, ‘By golly, those are ravens.’ ” said Smith, 63, a longtime Baltimore birder. He recognized their rasping call and photographed the pair, posting the picture on a Maryland birding site. Result?

“I got two ‘Wows,’ two ‘Loves’ and two ‘Likes,’ ” said Smith. “If I’d made an incorrect ID, I would have heard about it.”

The next day, Smith returned to the site and photographed an apparent fledgling raven balanced on a construction walkway near the light towers. Then, outside the stadium, high up in a nook in a structural support column, he spied two adults, flitting in and out of the cranny as if tending a nest.

“The hole is maybe 150 feet up and unreachable by any mammal. I don’t even think you could free climb it,” said Smith.

Historically, ravens are wilderness birds, said Kevin Graff, vice president of the Baltimore Bird Club.

“Ravens do like isolated, hardto-get-to places for raising their young, which is why they favor niches high up on cliffs and other almost inaccessible places,” said Graff. “But they are spreading east as quarries, high-rise buildings and other man-made places that weren’t here before give them new opportunities.”