The running battle between the crows and the jackdaws exploded early on Sunday morning. Springing out of bed to see what was causing the most infernal cawing, I half expected to see a fox being mobbed in the chicken run. However, a pitched battle was taking place between the corvids on the drive. Almost as soon as it started, a young jackdaw lay dead, pierced by a violent stab from the crow. The jackdaws went mad, swooping at the great black bird, which nonchalantly ate it. Nature can be extremely violent.
Everywhere, there is young. Rabbits the size of tennis balls skip around the hedgerows, young robins with speckled orange breasts demand more and more food from their parents, and the house martins (we’ve got many more than last year) swoop up into the eaves to feed their young. I spotted two squabs crouching on the compost heap at the end of the garden and locked the terriers up before they could get to them.
However, by teatime, both of the young pigeons were dead, seemingly of natural causes. I threw them into the field, and later watched as the same clattering of jackdaws that had been in the morning’s battle began to peck at the corpses.
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Chelsea Flower Show 2025: What else to do in SW3 if you're coming to the world's greatest flower showThere's more to Chelsea than just the Flower Show so we've rounded up some of the best places to eat, stay and shop.
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Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curvesAmid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.
