Foxglove

The crows were making a lot of noise, and I had wondered if there was a fox, but their problem was in the sky. Wheeling around with the crows was a huge black bird, and they did not like it.

I could not believe what I was seeing, until I heard it as well. "Kronk" it said, with a dull aftersound, as if it were saying "kronk" into an oildrum. A raven.

It could outfly the crows, and whenever they became too pressing, it flipped over on its back, to threaten with its huge beak. Ravens are everything crows are, but more so and on a larger scale.

Forty-odd years ago, there was a raven at the Tower of London that could speak. He was called 'Hector', a fact he would announce at ground level, to scare visitors witless.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette April 2