Tower of London's Raven Queen Missing Two Weeks and Presumed Dead

I had no idea about this legend although I have read about and seen photos of the ravens at the Tower of London.  They have always fascinated me.  Like the crows who visit me on occasion for peanuts and unshelled almonds, they are very smart.  "My" crows will occasionally gift me with a small token - a marble here, a particularly shiny stone there, one time a rather scuffed up single dice, a piece of what appears to be pink quartz shaped rather like a pyramid, and the piece de resistance, a gold-colored bracelet with brown stones set around it (one of the stones is missing and the bracelet is slightly bent).  Over 30 years or so, the crows have brought and left me a number of gifts, including a couple of bottle caps from beer bottles, LOL! They always leave their gifts in my old concrete birdbath, because during the summer I will visit it at least once a day to refresh/refill water.  It is a very popular bath in the neighborhood and gets a lot of traffic :)

Here is a photo of the Raven Queen Merlina, who has been at the Tower of London since 2007 (14 years) and flew away two weeks ago.  She has not returned and is now presumed to have died.

Image from CNN article January 14, 2021 "Tower of London's
'queen' raven, Merlina, missing and feared dead"

Here are some articles on Merlina's flying off and presumed death.  

New York Times, "A Raven Queen Vanishes, and Britain Checks a Prophecy"

By Alan Cowell
January 14, 2021

People Magazine, "Tower of London's Queen Raven Missing, Feared Dead"
By Katie Campione
January 14, 2021

Live Science, "Raven 'queen' missing from Tower of London, feared dead"

By Mindy Weisberger

January 15, 2021