I don’t know what’s going on with the jackdaws who roost in the big ash tree on the hill above our house. Lately they’ve been bursting over the garden with much clamour and commotion. The eruptions can happen at any time, which is very disturbing when one is hanging out the washing.

Usually big aerial displays of corvids take place at dusk. This seems different though. A bit of a fracas perhaps: the newly fledged offspring coming to terms with their established community, and vice versa. Anyway it strikes this human onlooker as one big family row. Well, just imagine having to live in one tree with this crowd.