The fact that today, the sun's shining reminds me only of how little we've seen for so long. It's not brilliant sun but this clouded, muted version is quite enough for me. It doesn't make only me feel more energetic- Ziki seems brighter too. He appears to be interested in the weather (as well he might be) and seems particularly responsive to changes-he began a morning of astonishing loud cawing one morning when it snowed heavily. He calls only in the morning but his vocal range has expanded over the past couple of weeks. Wonderfully, he makes 'practice' sounds in his throat, mellifluous, growling, trilling, speculative sorts of sounds, before breaking into loud caws. We try to respond, with either words or 'caws'-he seems to enjoy response but won't allow himself to be encouraged into sound. I don't know why he calls only in the morning. The other question which interests me is how he learned to speak crow. He was very young when he was precipitated from his nest-or whatever it was that befell him-and I don't know if he'd have had time to learn, which corvids have to do. He must have done-there's only a short time when birds can learn their song. His range of sound is wide and he seems to be developing it every day. I have bought a voice recorder and will try to put some sounds on the blog, if I can work out how to do it.

In the meantime, Chicken has begun dish-rattling, the usual forerunner to nesting. There's been a mild bit of displaying but no newspaper tearing yet. Outside, the birds have been getting busy for a while now. I was giving a talk last night and a lady who lives near a wood in Deeside told me that's she's being woken by the noise of nesting corvids. She doesn't find the sound pleasant. Listening to Zik in full voice as I write does encourage me to a certain sympathy, I must say. 

An article of mine on the subject of Donald Trump's proposal to build a golf course over a 'Site of Special Scientific Interest'-a series of shifting sand dunes on the Aberdeenshire coast, is now on the web-site of the excellent American magazine n+1. 

 

There's a terrific amount of experimental cawing in progress-today, is clearly the day for practising short caws. I am responding in what I like to think is appropriate fashion. No more the silent little crow!