Crow Chaos: A Very British Garden Wildlife Story
Monday, 4 May 2026
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.