Where did all the jackdaws come from?

I used to sponsor a jackdaw.

Back in the early 1980s, my family and I were regular visitors to Norton Bird Gardens in Suffolk – a place which, I discover to my dismay, no longer exists.

Norton Bird Gardens, that is. I am reliably assured that Suffolk still exists. It has a website at any rate. 

Anyway, much as at today’s zoos you can pay hundreds of pounds to sponsor a lion or a dugong or something – for which you can expect one signed photo a year – so then for an undisclosed sum I got my name on a sign outside an enclosure housing one common British bird.

My brother, if I remember rightly (Mum? Dad? Corrections below please), sponsored a magpie.

Two other things stick in my memory about Norton Bird Gardens.

1. Trees laden with more crab apples than I have ever seen during the summer. I’m not sure if they came from here, but the memory of those trees is tied up inextricably with a memory of making what seemed to be a never-ending supply of crab apple jelly.
2. An upright complete circle of bricks. To me as an under-10, that was an architectural marvel far surpassing the pyramids, the Taj Mahal or anything else wrought by the hand of man. 

So, the jackdaw was called Jackie and the magpie was called Michael, and we preferred to look at them – and try to run around the brick circle – than all the exotic birds that made up the rest of the collection.

My parents must have felt then much like I did the other week when we took the kids to Blackpool Zoo (approx £50 plus travel) and all they wanted to do was go on a poxy climbing frame and chase geese.

And so it is that I feel in some way responsible – culpable even – for the astonishing proliferation of these two species of crow in this country over the last 30 years.

Magpies, it need hardly be said, are now everywhere. Back when I was a kid, the best chance you had of seeing a magpie was to look for a dead one hanging off a farmer’s gate.

Clearly the joy imparted by the sight of two of them was a function of their relative scarcity. Nowadays, it’s wishes, kisses and secrets never to be told all over the bloody place.

But until very recently, it was pretty unusual to see a jackdaw. You generally had to go to “proper countryside” away from the presence of human beings – at which point you got out of crow territory and into either rook or jackdaw land.

Woodlands? They belong to jays.  

Towns? Pigeons.

Motorway service station car parks? Pied wagtails. They should just change their name to “car park bird” and have done.

Is it just me or are jackdaws encroaching on human habitats? I’ve seen them near my house. I’ve seen them in Boston (which is borderline human habitat, I know).

What does it mean? Surely, this is YET ANOTHER sign of the impending end of the world. Only 252 days to go now. Make sure you befriend a jackdaw before then – you might need him. 

Vegetable theft is no laughing matter

For two years' running now, someone has stolen the pumpkin I put out on my doorstep on Halloween. This year's effort is pictured, about two hours before it was nicked. As you can see, it's not exactly a work of art.

No trace of it has been found, apart from the lid which I discovered at the end of my pathway in the morning.

Loads of other pumpkins were out on doorsteps down my road, but only mine has been taken. Is it the crows? Is it my reptilian nemesis from Northern Rail? Or do I have more enemies I don't even know about?

Who is doing this? Next year, I'm going to hide in a wheelie bin all night if that's what it takes to find out who is waging this secret vendetta against me.

Beware the crows

You can break down the UK into three kinds of environment, defined by the prevailing forms of bird life.

Number one, urban areas – pigeons overrun cities and town centres like a swarm of leprous medieval beggars.

Number two, songbirds definitive of nice suburban and rural areas, characteristic of places like "leafy Surrey" and villages full of holiday homes with names like Cricklewickle-on-the-Dinglywingly.

Number three – the crows. Denizens of places most simply defined as "bleak". Stick up a housing estate on some moorland, the crows don't go away. Because it's still bleak. They remain, eye witnesses of ancient human sacrifice and the horrifying rites of our ancestors. Today, they hunch sneering down at council estates and wind-battered farm houses, miserable dog walkers and the crap-strewn gardens of residential A-roads.

Crows don't just look creepy. They are creepy, as this article I read in a local paper about a "crow court" makes clear. A group of crows is called a "murder" for god's sake.

Wherever I go (outside areas 1 and 2 above) I can be sure that if I look around, I'll spot a crow, watching me. At least, it looks like it's watching me. Against the sky – even the fart-grey skies of the Yorkshire autumn – the silhouette of a crow is like a black hole, sucking the light from around itself to achieve an almost reflecting darkness.

And this is why I believe crows are not birds at all, but rather extra-dimensional entities. That's not a bird watching you from on top of that lamppost while you wait at a lonely bus-stop as the last of the sun's rays fade away. It's a window straight to hell, and something's peering out at you from in there. Read anything on here and you'll know what I mean.