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.

Ravens at the Tower are traditional; ravens in West Sussex an unusual sight. The bundle of corvids went over the trees and out of my view, and my tea was cold when I tried it.

Driving across the weald, I saw my second unusual sight, one that I had read about and heard spoken of, but had never been quite sure whether to believe it or not.

A ragged circle of black birds - rooks or crows, I could not see - was on the ground in a field, seething and pecking at something in its midst. As I drew nearer, they flew off, but for one that lay in a broken twitching heap on the ground.

A parliament of rooks or a murder of crows? Unfortunately I had two cars close behind me and could not stop to find out. Were they killing a sick member of their own community, which is common in social creatures, or was this an intruder who had paid the price of invading their territory? It would have been fascinating to have known.

This was evidently going to be a day of black birds, for I was on my way to collect a crow for the Larsen trap, it being the time of year that nesting birds could do with some help with their predators.

There are new regulations for the traps, but mine were well within the specifications. All I needed was the Judas bird, and as I drove through the gates, I could see my friend waiting for me, a small pack of terriers busy in the yard.

These were black, too, from a famous bloodline in the north of England. They were versatile flint-eyed animals, pockmarked grey about their muzzles, touchy with other dogs, and even each other, though easy with people. Would I like to see his new litter of pups? Of course I would.

The crow was quiet on the trip home, eyes as dark as those of the terriers, and feathers as black and shiny as their coats. I stopped off and settled him in his new home, which I had prepared with food and water before I left. He had plenty of shelter, and was as comfortable as I could make him. He had a busy few weeks ahead.

Walking up the path to the back door, I stopped suddenly at a flash of russet, then saw it was a cock pheasant that had come in to the wild-bird feeders.

He was busily picking up the spilt feed, doing a good job of it, while one of his pretty hens, dressed in buff drab, stalked shyly in his wake. Then it was time for yet another black bird, for one of the chickens ran down the path in a flurry of cackling and outspread wings and set about her, driving her off the path and back through the hedge.

Satisfied that her territory had been well defended, she roused her plumage and stalked back to the garden, clucking the soft welcome that she gives whenever any one of us comes home.

Maybe she could not learn to speak like a raven, but she has her own way of making her point. I reached for the drum of chicken food and she stretched upwards to eat out of my hand.

This feature was first published in the West Sussex Gazette April 2. To read it first, buy the West Sussex Gazette every Wednesday.