Our (Every) Morning Visitors in the Alps: The Suspicious and Vigilant Ravens

It is high season for wintersport as we speak and many families in the Netherlands are in the Alps right now skiing and snowboarding. Dutchman and I usually do our wintersport holiday in January because we prefer to go in the low season when it is less traffic on the highways, less busy on the slopes and accommodations are less expensive as well.

We stayed in a modest apartment in Flaine Foret, at the Residence Les Pleiades in the northern part of the French Alps (Haute Savoie). We had a balcony with a lovely view of the mountains and pine trees. Every morning we have visitors. Every single morning.

These ravens make a formation on the railings every morning =)

We encountered the ravens on our first morning whilst having breakfast. They just flew into our balcony and stood on the railings as if it was the most natural thing to do. Dutchman said that the people who have stayed at our apartment before have been feeding the birds. Hmm, which is perhaps the reason why they felt so at home making a formation on our balcony railing.

Of course I cannot stand not giving them anything. I have a heart you know.

So every single morning when Dutchman and I are having breakfast, the ravens gather as well. We fed them mostly with fresh apples and a leftover apple tart as well that we brought from the Netherlands.

These ravens are wild by the way, and do not trust any human being that comes near them. When I get out of the apartment and step into the balcony to place the plate with food, they fly away. Only when I go back in, that they slowly, one by one, fly back. It takes them a few minutes before they start picking the food. They are not taking any chances, these ravens are very suspicious and highly vigilant.

I hope the ones who moved in after us continued to feed them.

The view from our balcony is all white as it snowed non-stop straight for the first 3 days when we were there.

The ravens hangout on the branches of the pine trees. They are very sharp, they tend to watch us in the morning when we have breakfast, and for some reason they know that we are about to finish because they fly in and make the railing formation.

Dutchman took this photo. He is quite proud of this for catching the bird in action.

Our modest apartment. We quite liked it. Simple and had all that we needed. There is cable but unfortunately no Dutch channels (lots of English channels though).

We have a little kitchen complete with an oven, dishwasher, stove + exhaust, fridge, toaster, coffee maker and water cooker. The bathroom also has a bath tub which is very important when your muscles are tired from skiing.