It's the best tree in the world.

Jar-ed had one more idea on his mind, there was one more project they could do.

He had sort of taken over the leadership role of the whole gaggle of ravens that were staying at this tree. He had found the tree 10 days ago, and he had managed to convince other ravens that the tree was special. Because it was.

The tree was large. It stood alone. It dominated the surrounding area, simply because of its fullness, varied green colors, and symmetry, like an amazing organic firework exploding in slow motion over the last 30 years.

Underneath the outer leaf cover of the tree there was SO MANY interior spaces that were protected and intimate! There were nooks. And crannies. Spots to crap. Plenty of places to hang out together, or to sleep alone. Big leaves! Smaller leaves! Beautiful leaves, so perfectly designed, so appealing to the eye.

And there was one more amazing this about this tree. It pointed. North.

It had an extensive organic appendage about ten feet in length, pointing up. And north. It was an unavoidably phallic symbol if you were a human, but if you were a raven it was a orientation tool. You could always see it from anywhere within a mile radius. The tree both created an entire raven neighborhood by being so striking and visible from afar and made itself the very center of this entire raven neighborhood by being such an interesting and dominant beautiful spectacle.

Why had the tree grown this way, with a thick branch that simply extended outwards and upwards, with lots of smaller viney branch systems and leaves writhing around it? There were no other trees that had done such a thing. You could land anywhere on it and feel safe, even the tip of it, and ravens had been doing so routinely now for the last several days since Jar-ed had shown his discovery to others.

On that important morning ten days ago, Jar-ed had already solidified his stature amongst others. He'd been around for weeks. He was older than most. He represented himself simply and without fear, wasn't stupid too often or worried about any time he might have been in the past, and he was undeniably quick in understanding things.

It was his past history of simple trustable behavior that allowed him to pull off the risk of simply asking a couple birds he didn't know that well to follow him to this tree he had run into. It was a flight of a couple minutes, it needed to have a payoff for the birds he had asked, but Jar-ed knew what he had discovered. The two others understood 100 feet before they all arrived.

They celebrated together first, just themselves. They knew the tree would never feel so exclusive to them again, and why not dance a bit first? Above the tree there were thermals and gentle winds blowing to and fro , and the best thing about floating is how you can do it forever and not get tired...

Jar-ed dipped his wing and dived into the tree. He began a hopping game to see how far he could travel around the inside of the tree by hopping. It soon became one of the best games he had ever thought to invent for himself, and he hopped up and down and all around on the interior branches, wow, this looks like a main hopping highway, wow, zik zik zak here I am up here!, and now... bounce, bounce, bounce -- wheee --I'm down here! It was amazing, you could hop or stop as you wished, anywhere! There was room for dozens and dozens of ravens here.

The others landed and took a peek at what he was doing and did some hopping themselves.

Twenty minutes passed before they had had their fill.

They flew back to behave as a group of three while talking to others about this tree, come and see! Seven came. A couple flew back to tell others. And so it went.

There was one resident who nested a good quarter mile away who tried to fight it, but there's no stopping a group decision made by one hundred fifty adolescent ravens.

Things were now forever different here. The ravens had a new town center, a new apartment house and city hall all in one. There were sight lines to other trees and a few birds were exploring already.

Jar-ed made sure, 10 days ago, to claim the best spot top middle of the tree, eight feet retracted from the outer edge of leaf cover.

Today, Jar-ed felt a challenge. The other ravens were becoming disorganized, and not interacting inside the tree as politely as they had been previously.

The tree needed rules. Every raven needed to follow these rules.

First, he thought, was a rule prohibiting challenges inside the tree. Everyone is allowed to visit and sleep, but be graceful and courteous. The tree has settled the way it has, the ravens with the best spots get to keep them. And you can live with this decision, because there's plenty of room elsewhere in this new neighborhood, go make it a neighborhood worth it for us to come visit you.

The rule he really wanted was: don't fuck this up! No one fuck this up, this is a good thing! And he didn't mind saying so to a couple of others.