Ravens squawk atop our neighbor's towering Cypress. They fly over from the park, two blocks from here, and stake out their territory. Winged lords of misrule.

I'm trying to like ravens, but the truth is they're bugging me. It took me a really long time to like birds, period. At age 10 I saw the Hitchcock movie, which just confirmed my impression of the things: fidgety, scritchy-scratchy creatures that might, at any moment, swoop down to land on my head and get caught in my hair.

There have been exceptions, though, more than a few. I love hummingbirds, owls, Eastern blue jays, cardinals, finches, robins, and most seabirds.

At my last apartment there were doves, hummingbirds, finches, robins, scrub-jays. One scrub-jay in particular liked to hop into my studio through a window. I was also lucky enough to have French doors that opened onto the backyard. In Springtime, I'd swing them wide and lie on the carpet, peering out at the wildlife from a caterpillar's vantage point. Calla lilies atrracted snails, fuchsias attracted hummingbirds, and the persimmon tree was the scrub-jay's perch of choice--when it wasn't hopping around on my big crimson Macy's-version-of-Persian rug, that is. Scrub-jays are noisy, but this one was fairly quiet. It was nearly endearing, almost not creepy, the way he hopped and bobbed around the carpet, slightly disoriented, but seeming not to mind the temporary dislocation too much. Sometimes I'd shoo him out the French doors just to watch him peck at the half-open window and hop right back through it, right back into the apartment, where he'd been just a few minutes before.

But back to ravens. I'd never seen one until I moved here from Boston. Before Boston, I lived in Delaware, where I grew up, and where I spent a lot of time visiting parks with my family. We regularly saw blizzards of snow geese, herons, cranes, and ducks, as well as the occasional deer, rabbit, raccoon or fox.

The ravens in Northern California are huge. Some of them have, no doubt, swallowed entire cats whole. Occasionally I'll see one picking over a chicken bone in the street (there's a KFC nearby). I've never liked chicken (eating it, that is). So the sight of bird cannibalism of this kind doubly creeps me out. As I've said, I've tried to like ravens. And I appreciate that they're smart, that they play and share food. I applaud their presence in poetry and myth. But, in the end, once they've fled the dusty cages of literature, they fail to move me. In the end, they still bug me.

Luckily, the ravens next door seem to come and go at pretty predictable times. I have ceded mid-mornings to them, when they're at their cackliest. Other times it's generally safe to venture into the yard. Slowly but surely, I'm putting my garden project into action. There's a lot to work with: a nice dilapidated shed-type building that looks as though it might once have been a small stable, a large open space I'll call a patio, bordering on the patio are ivies and grasses, the ubiquitous calla lilies. Full shade in the morning, full sun in the afternoon.

Occasionally, when I venture outside in early afternoon, the Cypress ravens are there, primed and in full voice, just waiting to squawk at me. Below them, on the terrace next door, are two sweet labradors who, barely able to contain their indignance and joy, bark gustily at the ravens. And in the yard beneath the dogs--playing in serious and businesslike ways--are children who, with great energy and enthusiasm, bark back at the dogs.

To all things, there is a pecking order.