For many years some of the crow family have felt very much at home in our garden and on top of the roof, eating from the bird table and nesting in an old empty chimney. When seen in detail they are all very beautiful birds. The rooks have a bluish shine on their very finely preened feathers, they shine. The hooded crows have both black and grey feathers and they only venture on to the patio from time to time, they mostly feed on carrion somewhere else. The jackdaws, also belonging to the crow family feed side to side with the rooks, they are not afraid of these black birds with huge beaks. One of the rooks, we call him Charlie, is very noisy and demonstrates his superior voice quality whenever there is something happening that he does not like around the place. Rooks are very sociable and we see them in groups of about a dozen, intermixed with jackdaws. They are said to hide food into a hole but I have never seen them do that around here. I have seen them play catch in the skies above the garden here, while being very vocal they fly after each other creating great manoeuvres. At times when I go into the garden, one of them, sitting on the roof will give out being very vocal and goodness knows what he is communicating to the others, they know I feed them every day in winter (mainly seeds and peanuts, sometimes table leftovers).
It is a pleasure to have them around, though in a way I might be fonder of the little birds with highly coloured feathers. The crow family are very welcome in our garden, and quite interesting to observe.