I’d read, on the British Trust for Ornithology website, that ‘Rook pairs spend a lot of time close together, feeding one another, displaying and vocalising together and preening’, but had never seen that behaviour until last Sunday when I stood watching eight Rooks grazing a horse field.

As you will see in my short video clip, one bird ‘bows’ to the other, while splaying out its tail feathers, then its mate feeds it. What a privilege it was to witness this pair-bonding behaviour.