Saturday's Guardian contained a good review of Mark Cocker's book Crow Country, and all the Sunday broadsheets carried positive reviews too. It's nice to see someone sticking up for corvids for a change, and I like Cocker's writing. Birds Britannica, which he co-wrote, is an absolute gem, as much for writers and general readers as birdwatchers.
Quite why crows (as a family) continue to get such a bad press I'm not sure. Now they're no longer seen as such a threat to agriculture (dubious anyway, as rooks probably do more good than harm by eating pests), we blame them for the decline of all sorts of small birds. And yes, they do take nestlings and eggs, but never enough to threaten the victim species. After all, that would make bad sense for them, by totally killing off a food source. Instead, we seem to be holding them responsible for something we've done ourselves.
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