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This morning, as I walked to the shops, I spotted a crow.  That wasn’t hard because it was making a loud cawing sound – a proper South East London crow, indeed.  Perhaps there was a cat around, maybe it was trying to locate its mate, or it could have been defending its territory.  I’m not sure what was going on, but one thing was for sure – this crow was perched very precariously on a sapling in a planter.  Perhaps six foot tall, the young tree has been damaged (perhaps by the crow?), meaning that a bird, if it lands elegantly enough, can perch atop it.  Yet what bird would want to do that? This one, obviously.  I didn’t see it land, but the level of expertise it must have taken is astonishing.  I say this because I can’t even do a three-point turn very well, so I can’t imagine calculating angles with height involved too.

Still pondering these avian acrobatics, I reached home and popped the eggs I had just bought into the fridge. I discovered a single egg at its back, and I decided that, since the crow had given me a visual treat, I would give the ones that haunt my garden an edible one. Now, this isn’t something I do often.  Although I do like to see the bigger birds in my garden (the rivalries between the crows and the magpies are legendary for their riotousness, noisiness and general length!) I generally do not feed birds at all. I used to, but then read up on it and discovered that it could produce an over-reliance on feeders, not to mention that lots of birds congregating together isn’t necessarily good for their general health.

Not only that, I know that well-fed crows will not stop predating other birds, so feeding them in the hope that they will lay off the smaller birds for even a while is a pointless exercise. Eggs and nestlings are easy, high-value food and predation is partly instinctive behaviour, not just need.  So, even if I laid on a banquet each day for the crows it would potentially only do one thing – attract more crows.

What I do, instead, is try and make my garden as pollinator friendly as possible.  As you can see from the picture above, the spring flowers are doing their best at the moment.  Even though my patch could generally be called a “summer garden”, there are plenty of flowers even now.  The wall flowers are doing well, the miniature lilac is in full bloom (beautiful fragrance) as is the borage (no smell to my nose, but the bees love it and they can't be wrong).

Plus every time I am in the garden this time of year, I am closely watched by a trio of robins (my octogenarian next-door neighbour insists they’re siblings). They have a ravenous look in their eyes and pop manically around me even as I dig to snatch away anything tasty my endeavours might uncover from the soil.  This does make it sound like I have developed the garden as a trap for hapless bugs to become bird food - and I suppose I have on a quick reflection...

Back to the egg. It was a temptation I couldn’t resist, so I popped it out, under the ceramic chickens that guard the little water bowl I have provided for the smaller birds and the insects.  As a quick aside, the local foxes are not fazed at all by these chickens and one even sits with them.   As a second aside, the chickens (and snail) are all found objects that I have dragged home at some point or another - the things people throw away, eh?  Regardless, once the crows had finished with the egg (and I had my gardening gloves on) I could squish the shell into small pieces and use it to add a little calcium to the soil and as a slug deterrent (yes, I know it’s not very good at that, but hope springs eternal).

Sure enough, within a minute the local crow celebrity couple (well, they are in my garden!) made an appearance and the egg was cracked and the yolk eaten in just a few minutes.  Now, once one has finished one’s morning repast, a drink is in order and maybe a quick chat.

And so is a bath.

So, crows are welcome in this garden as much as any other urban garden wildlife. However, I will make on final point.  Although the larger birds (crows, together with magpies, parakeets, wood pigeons and the occasional jay) are the only ones to use this larger bird bath, it does seem to have been requisitioned mostly by the crows.  They are a little careless about how they leave it, too.  Although it is used for drinking and bathing, they often bring food. Bread (not left out by me) is brought to soak before it’s gobbled, and I’ve also seen one take a casual dump into the bird bath. So it has to be cleaned regularly. The elderberry shoots around it have to be trimmed a lot so they can access it.  We also top up the water almost daily – not only because it gets dirty but because half of it is gone – crows (as you can see from the pictures) like to have a vigorous cleanse!

Seriously, do these birds have shares in a local bakery? I want to shout "It's no good for you!" but I don't speak Crow.

I think they recognise this in some way.  Certainly, they are not bothered much by my presence and will allow me to get nearer to them to watch than I would have thought likely. So, I am happy to welcome these cunning corvids into my garden.