JACKDAW UPDATE

Well, for reasons that will only make sense to me and Max, the young jackdaw is called Gerry. As you can see, the baffled little fellow of this morning has recovered his panache and developed a taste for mince and mealworms, as well as raw egg.

Whether we shall be able to release him into the wild I don't know, but we are doing our best not to spend too much time with him so that he doesn't become imprinted with humankind.

However, he has already been having jolly conversations with Rufus, the Chinese crested mynah who lives in the flight cage opposite him, but I don't think that is too much of a problem. A small corvid who thinks he is human won't last long in the wild, but a small corvid who thinks that he is an oriental starling-like bird may have fewer problems.

Let's hope he doesn't pick up all of Rufus's vices. We leave a radio on in the conservatory all day for him, and we soon realised that he prefers a certain genre of music. You ain't seen nothing yet seems to have been re-released, and is on heavy rotation on one of the local radio stations. Rufus adores it, and sings along with gusto!

However, I hope that Gerry will be released within a few weeks, and I am aware that crows have a propensity for passing on learned behaviour to their peers. And a corvid population in Woolfardisworthy with a taste for Canadian hard rockers with poor dress sense is more than body and soul can stand!