The story of Lenore, the Muni raven — pretty much the most San Francisco thing to ever happen to a transit geek

Okay, lots of questions about how this happened. Jeremy and I were on the 49, headed home from a League of Pissed Off Voters meeting. We’d already run into several friends on 24th Street and detoured for Humphry Slocombe secret breakfast ice cream. We were having some San Francisco love feels.

We were on a slow bus because of traffic on Van Ness. A bunch of teenagers got off the bus at the stop by the big Goodwill and were yelling outside the bus. Then I saw the raven on a guy’s head a few seats up. I thought it was his raven because, you know, San Francisco, but then we realized he had flown into the bus because the guy was trying to knock it off his head. The kids outside the bus were reaching in the window and trying to take photos. Jeremy was trying to open the window wider. I tried to help the raven by picking up his feet so he could take off flying.

That’s when he realized he was more comfortable on the bus, I guess, and moved to my arm. I wanted to let him off safely. I yelled “back door” (met with a bunch of chuckles) but the bus driver couldn’t hear me and we’d already passed Grove. So we just rang the bell and got off at the next stop, which was City Hall. We went to the lawn and I leaned down to let him off. Then he flew to my head. We were nudging him, “c’mon, buddy, you’re okay now.” Jeremy nudged him. I remember saying he’s walking across my face. Before we knew it, he took off flying across McAllister and Jeremy saw he was safely at the courthouse.

I was pretty sure it was a crow, but after I showed Tarin some other pictures of his beak and tail, she identified it as a raven. I asked Vivian to name the raven because she had named Bathsheba de Tolay, the elephant seal.

Now I’m spending time thinking about the significance of a raven visiting us at my favorite place in the city, second only to the marble stairs of City Hall, the often unloved workhorse, Muni.