Dangling Crow

Overnight frost – the first of the year, here in Lichfield – and looking out at the garden this morning, I saw something I'd read about but never actually seen before: a crow was hanging upside down, wings folded, from the end of a thin twiggy branch, low down in the big ash tree. At first I thought that something was wrong, but the bird soon dropped to the ground – and a minute later it was up in the tree again, making its way down the same branch, to hang there again. This is surely play – even science acknowledges that crows, rooks and ravens engage in behaviour that can only be classified as play, another example being rooks' displays of crazy free-fall flight, known as 'whiffling'. Magpies, however, don't seem so keen: my crow was all the time being watched by a scolding, agitated magpie who didn't seem to approve at all. After a couple more upside-down hangs, my crow flew off and went about its business of the day. Once again I feel an irresistible urge to quote Kay Ryan's…

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