Framed

I was back walking the banks of the River Kent today, looking out for....guess what, otters. And no surprises, I failed again. So again I resorted to watching the carrion crows.

Who knows, maybe this is the same one I blipped a couple of weeks ago. There were several of them about, as usual much more approachable than the country crows.

The blackness of crows and their habit of feeding on carrion and predating gamebird chicks has negative connotations for so many people, many think of them as evil birds. But aren't the notions of good and evil human constructs, more aptly applied to people than birds or animals? Mark Cocker's Birds Britannica provides a more balanced account of the place of these birds in our culture and folklore. Despite all the persecution to which they are subject, crows are indomitable survivors, clever and adaptable.

One of the stories Cocker gathered was that of Ellen Kershaw who was given a carrion crow called Foster who had been hand-reared. He took possession of her garden, and she recounts how he created in her such a variety of emotions - "immense amusement at his many antics, utter melancholy when he went missing, and screaming irritation whenever he decided to 'help' me with my various garden activities."

He went to live in a friend's garden in an aviary as preparation for release into the wild. But one night a storm brought down a tree on his aviary and in the morning he was gone. They didn't know if he had been injured or not. In the summer of the following year, she had a phone call from her friend. "Foster had returned and brought his family with him".

Cocker himself wrote Crow Country, an eloquent celebration of the more communal crow species, the rooks and jackdaws. They are all fascinating birds.