Merlyn Williams, Yellowknife raven whisperer, is still friends with Raymond

To some Northerners, ravens are an annoyance, but one Yellowknifer has fallen in love with the giant black birds. Or more specifically, one special bird named Raymond.

Merlyn Williams has been talking to ravens for four decades.

He met Raymond the Raven several years ago and now they hang out almost every day on his balcony overlooking Great Slave Lake.

"He's got a few problems. He can be demanding, he can be miserable at times," Williams says of his friend. "He's high maintenance, very high maintenance."

The pair met when Williams heard a bird making "a hell of a kaw kaw" on the apex of his roof.

"He kept calling me," he says. "So I said, 'Joyce, bring me a piece of bread out.'"

The friendship went public two years ago, when Williams posted a YouTube video of him chatting with Raymond that got thousands of views.

What is it about people like Williams that ravens are so attracted to?

Experts say the birds love to talk not just with each other, but with humans as well and if you feed them, as Williams does, they'll be your friends for life.

"Ravens do recognize individuals," says Terry McEneaney, an ornithologist from Wyoming. "Human individuals. They have incredible eyesight. A large part of the raven brain is a visual cortex. They perceive everything with their eyes."

Incredible eyesight coupled with an impeccable memory means ravens won't forget a kind gesture, or a cruel act.

"Scientists have found that the ravens do show emotion," McEneaney says.

Williams doesn't need a scientist to tell him that.

Raymond is his second raven friend. He befriended the first, Elvis, after nearly driving over it with his car in the summer of 1975.

"Icould get him to fly down from the roof here, onto my arm, on my shoulder. You couldn't get any friendlier than that, could you?"

Williams says all ravens are friendly when young, beforethey learn to associate humans with trouble.