Everyone knows of Edgar Allen Poe’s darkest and most well-known poem, The Raven. And you’d be right to suspect that his inspiration came from a real, live bird. The illustrious avian Poe encountered had an excellent vocabulary, in fact, and it did set the ground work for the author’s macabre storytelling. The bird Poe met, however, belonged to his contemporary, Charles Dickens, and was a family pet.

Wild ravens didn’t often frequent Poe’s 19th century Baltimore. At that point, ravens were disappearing from much of the East and Midwest. They were being rapidly exterminated as pests thought to constitute a threat to game birds and domestic animals. Since the 1900’s, ravens have made a big comeback, but it’s still unlikely to see one in our city. So where do they live?

Listen to this episode and find out.