I first introduced you to my Carrion crow friend back in May last year (A crow companion) and then wrote about our continuing ‘friendship’ in October 2022 (The look, the glare). Our relationship has continued in the intervening months; whenever I walk through his territory, he flies over, walks with me, expects food. He even manages to find me when I’m walking along the woodland path adjacent to his paddock, and I don’t know how he does that!

Earlier this year, he began bringing another Crow with him, his mate I immediately presumed. She was initially very timid but is now much less so, and is sometimes the first to spot me and fly over. A couple of months back they both became much more demanding and were flying away, their beaks jammed with food, towards a specific part of the woodland. Chicks! And now here they are – three well-grown, raucous and difficult-to-photograph-because-never-still youngsters, who are also being brought to see and taught about the food-bearing human. I couldn’t be more proud!