When Julia Martin walked the upper concourse of M&T Bank Stadium while working the overnight shift for S.A.F.E. Management security, she would hear the ravens.
Not the Baltimore Ravens. Real ravens.
Yes, a flock (actually, an unkindness) of ravens has been, and still is, living at M&T Bank Stadium, the home of the Baltimore Ravens.
It's an occurrence so unique that when Martin found an injured raven and called an animal rescue agency for help, they didn't believe her.
"They thought I was prank calling them because I told them that we had an injured raven at M&T Bank Stadium and they thought it was another Poe injury," Martin said, referring to the mascot's injury during a 2022 preseason game.
This is the story of how ravens have made M&T Bank Stadium their home, made friends, and got a helping human hand in a time of need.
'It Started Raining French Fries'
The first time Martin noticed ravens at M&T Bank Stadium was well before she believes they began roosting there. It was on Ravens Walk before the Dec. 21 primetime game against the New England Patriots.
"It started raining french fries," Martin said. "I was like, 'Who's throwing french fries?!' One of the birds had taken some and was dropping them."
Martin saw the big birds swooping back down and catching the fries, sometimes before they even hit the ground. Turns out, ravens really like potatoes.
She didn't think too much of it until after the season was over. Keeping M&T Bank Stadium secure is a 24/7 job, and Martin had signed up for the night shift. That's when she started seeing them again, in late February – nesting season.
In the ensuing months, Martin and other security staff saw more ravens. The most they've seen together is eight, which is coincidentally Lamar Jackson's number. Common ravens typically lay between three and seven eggs, so it adds up.
And when the sun goes down, they make their presence felt.
"It kind of goes along with the dark and dreary night," Martin said. "You're locking down the stadium and you've got all these birds flying around."
The Ravens have a couple of real bird mascots, Rise and Conquer, who live at The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and make appearances at Ravens games and other events around Maryland as animal ambassadors. They actually hatched in Alabama and are hybrids of the brown-necked raven and pied crow from Africa.
The recent inhabitants of M&T Bank Stadium, however, are common ravens.
Ravens are known for being highly intelligent, but Martin didn't know they could have so much personality. After so many nights doing the stadium lockdown, she felt like she got to know them.
"They're pretty rambunctious, very territorial," Martin said of the stadium ravens. "They definitely fit the bill of a Baltimore Raven, for sure. Their presence on the upper concourse is very, 'protect this house-ish.'
"You kind of become friends with them. Like, 'Look, you do your protection detail, I'm going to do the lockdown, and we're all going to get through this night together.'"
With their jet-black feathers, Martin often couldn't see the ravens in M&T Bank Stadium at night. But she heard them. After all, they are the world's largest songbird.
"You're kind of working by yourself all throughout the middle of the night and your only company is the birds," Martin said. "I think it's scarier when they're not there and you get that eerie feeling that you are all by yourself. People who work overnight, we make the weirdest friends."
'A Conservation Success Story'
You might be asking yourself what a raven doing in a big city like Baltimore and why they're hanging out at a stadium.
Dr. David Curson is the Mid-Atlantic Audubon Society's Director of Bird Conservation. He explained that ravens, after long trailing on the population scoreboard among birds, are now making a comeback.
A few centuries ago, they thrived across the United States, but their populations declined dramatically throughout the 19th century due to persecution and poisoning by humans, who thought the large predatory birds would kill their livestock. In the Eastern U.S., they were beaten back to remote "strongholds" in the Appalachian Mountains. Since the 1970s, however, they've been making a return across Maryland.
"It's quite a conversation success story, really," said Curson, who said he has spotted ravens near his residence in Timonium and as he drives down I-83 by Druid Hill Park. "They are indeed coming back into Baltimore, and that's good news because they're really nice birds to have around."
Ravens are very adaptable because they're strong hunters and wily scavengers. During the day, the stadium ravens head into the city to use both skills before returning to the concourse in the evening.
As far as a nesting spot, a stadium can make a good home because it's often rather empty, provides a high vantage point, and the outcroppings from the stadium's upper deck mimic a cliff's edge, providing safety from predators and protection from elements.
Curson said ravens are still in the "early stages" of their rebound. When he was told some had set up shop at M&T Bank Stadium, he burst with excitement. He requested video to confirm it was indeed ravens and not their close relative, crows. The two are often mistaken for each other.
Large, deep beak. Throaty call. Diamond-shaped tail. Check, check, and check.
"Wow! Well, that's fantastic!" he said. "It's the Ravens' stadium. How poetic!"
However, Mother Nature often writes her own story. And that is how one raven fell from the flock.
'We All Adopted Him'
One fledgling raven, only a few weeks old, hadn't been flying for long when a storm rolled into Baltimore in late April. It was an especially windy night, and Martin noticed the young birds were having troubles.
"The wind was catching the ravens underneath their wings," Martin said. "It was throwing them into the underneath side of the seating bowl."
After she saw one bird hit and fall to the upper concourse, Martin and others scurried up to check on it. When they saw it perched on a water spigot, they thought it was OK. But when it tried to take flight and floundered instead, they realized it wasn't.
Martin kept an eye on it for a few days to see if it would recover. She made wellness checks and found it walking around the same area, trying to find shelter. When she checked on it, the other ravens circled overhead, yelling at her.
After a while, the raven glided even lower, perhaps looking for food. It was down in front of gate C, where fans going to an Orioles game took notice and approached the bird. Martin, a security professional, didn't like people messing with her bird friend.
Martin knew it was time to take action, so she started calling around to rescue services. After one call was brushed off as a prank, she handed the search over to John Hesselrode, a longtime S.A.F.E. security coordinator, who founded Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds, a town in northwest Montgomery County.
They sent out experienced wildlife rescuer Billy Rios to get the bird, but he didn't find it at M&T Bank Stadium. The flock's other ravens also didn't like people messing with their friend.
Hesselrode saw the other ravens provide a security escort away from the stadium and into the construction zone of the Ostend Baltimore concert venue across the street, which had shut down for the day.
"You see like three or four of them flying around and one came down and actually was walking with it," Hesselrode said. "They were trying to get him off the property."
Rios shimmied his way into the construction area and, within five minutes, captured the bird. On May 1, it arrived at the Owl Moon Raptor Center under the care of executive director and founder Suzanne Shoemaker. Since she started the rehabilitation center in 2002, they only had maybe a half dozen ravens. They're tough birds.
They found that the fledgling raven had pain and reduced range of motion in his left wing. They gave him some medications and physical therapy. His feathers were still a little messed up from the ordeal, but after a couple weeks, they tested him out and deemed him ready to come off injured reserve.
Last year, the Owl Moon Raptor Center had more than 700 birds come into their facility. They often aren't able to take flight again, but this raven was resilient.
"We all adopted him," Shoemaker said. "He was very cute. He was a fixture here for two weeks."
On May 16, they brought the raven back to M&T Bank Stadium. Martin insisted that they release him back up in the upper deck, near where they were roosting. The other ravens weren't around during the day, but they were hopeful they would reunite that night.
When Rios opened the box, the bird briefly looked around, then flew up to perch atop the sign for Section 533/532.
"As soon as he flew up, he landed on the [word] kickoff. It was like, 'Alright, now it's go time. Let's get back in this game.'"
Martin cried tears of joy. She was going through a tough time in her personal life, and the raven's successful return was symbolic of triumph.
"It really was a blessing to me," Martin said. "That was part of the reason why I bonded with the ravens. It was just me and them and they were serving a very important piece of my life."
Shoemaker and her team identified the fledgling raven as "Hesselrode," following their standard practice of naming birds after the person who made the call for rescue. When Rios and his young son came back to release the bird, they named it "Swoop."
Martin at first called it "Lenore," after the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem. She now prefers "Elijah," a reference to Bible scripture in which God commands ravens to feed the prophet Elijah during a multi-year drought.
Elijah's flock took him back in and they're still watching over where the Ravens play. It remains to be seen whether the flock will join The Flock when football kicks off at M&T Bank Stadium in September.
Once paired, ravens tend to mate for life and usually return to the same spot. Young ravens stay with their parents for about six months after first taking flight.
Martin recently got a promotion and a desk job that took her off the overnight shift. But she still checks on Elijah and her other feathered friends when she goes back to M&T Bank Stadium to train her replacements.
She wasn't a football fan before, but now, Martin is a ravens and Ravens fan.
"I love the Ravens," she said, though it was unclear exactly which one she was talking about.
