I am not a great lover of crows, but they have been great entertainment value this year.

The latest thing I have observed completely baffled both myself and Gaynor as we watched a strange little scenario being acted out in front of us.

There are two power lines in the fields at the rear of the house and they attract a good variety of birds - pigeons resting, birds of prey watching, starlings chattering - and crows.  On this particular morning there were two crows on the line and a third, dark, slightly oblong shape, which, to my eye, looked distinctly odd.  I asked Gaynor to have a look and she noticed that this shape was hanging from the line rather than sitting on it like the birds were.  As we squinted into the mid-distance trying to work out what it was, the shape suddenly plummeted towards the ground and just before the point of impact suddenly developed wings and transformed the plummet into a low ground skimming swoop.  It was another crow.

We were a bit taken aback by this and watched the crow fly off, accompanied by the other two from the line.  They all flew a large circle over the fields and returned to the lines.  The two crows landed safely on the lines and the third came in to land and it was very soon apparent that it did not enjoy the level of balance the other did.  It wobbled frantically before it came to rest in balance and then, to our astonishment, having achieved balance it rotated 180 degrees very slowly to end up suspended below the line.  It remained there for a short time and then repeated the plummet/swoop manouvere.

We watched this repeated maybe 8 or 9 times.  Sometimes the poor thing did not even get to balance before it slid around the wire, always in slow motion, to hang beneath it.  It did a little better on a section of wire closer to the pole where there was a bit less movement in the line.  The other two crows remained in the area all the time.

I can only assume that this individual was either very young and inexperienced, had an injury or something else that prevented it either achieving or learning the skill it was clearly trying so hard to acquire,.  It reminded me a bit of the perseverance displayed by infants as they learn to walk.  I suppose it could have just been entertaining itself.

If anyone out there has any idea if this is common behaviour or not I would appreciate some information on it.