A creative raven has the art world in a flap after producing a stunning range of experimental paintings - with her beak.<br /><br />Eleven-year-old Odin uses an array of vivid animal-safe paints and food colourings to make her amazing abstract works, which are flying off the shelves for up to £15.<br /><br />Keepers at the Tropical Butterfly House Wildlife Conservation Park in Sheffield, South Yorks., said they first gave the captive bird an easel around eight years ago.<br /><br />And after introducing her to different tools over the course of a year, she was then able to use a brush to create her incredible works.<br /><br />Keeper Milly Fox, 25, said the “charismatic” bird loved giving the canvas “a good splatter” and had an “aggressive” approach to producing her unique paintings.<br /><br />She said: “Odin very much just gives the canvas a good whack with the paintbrush. She likes a good splatter. <br /><br />"Very occasionally, she’ll just run the brush down the canvass. But she’s quite aggressive. <br /><br />“She’s definitely one of the most intelligent animals that we’ve got in the park.<br /><br />“She’s smarter than us a lot of the time with the way she thinks about things and solves the enrichment puzzles we set her.”<br /><br />Odin, who was born in captivity at the Tropical Butterfly House Wildlife Conservation Park, was introduced to the creative process by her keepers from the age of three.<br /><br />And it didn’t take long for her to put brush to canvas and start producing incredible works of art.<br /><br />Milly said: “It took her less than a year because she’s really, really smart. But it would have been a slow process to begin with.<br /><br />“As far as I know, with them picking up and painting with the brush, she’s the only bird that’s been able to do that. <br /><br />“We do a few little things where the lemmas run across a canvas and the macaws have done a few, but not to the level of skill that Odin does. <br /><br />“Also, she does it on purpose, rather than us encouraging her to walk across the canvas.”<br /><br />Milly said Odin’s most prolific period was before the covid pandemic when she had completed several works that were snapped up by the general public.<br /><br />But she said the avant-garde Raven, who once shared an enclosure with a vulture, was also a talented mimic who could reproduce the sounds of kids’ screams.<br /><br />Studies have shown that ravens, which are part of the Corvidae family, have cognitive skills rivalling the great apes at full maturity.<br /><br />And other studies suggest that they may have similar problem-solving capabilities to that of a child under seven years old.<br /><br />The sales from Odin’s works are donated to conservation fundraising projects.
