Subcontractors

As will be well known to long-term readers of this blog, I'm an admirer of the birds of the crow family. And, as will be well known to fans of crows, there is a long-standing feud between the crows and the larger birds of prey, most obviously in Britain the buzzard; not (as in America) a vulture, but a large hawk, or Buteo buteo as it is know to the scientific community. The roots of this dispute are lost in the mists of time, but should a buzzard appear in the sky you can guarantee that a squadron of crows will scramble and count coup on its feathers and generally take the piss, until the predator shrugs them off and circles its way to another neck of the woods.

So, looking out of our Bristol flat's window this morning – which offers a magnificent view over the Avon Gorge and Leigh Woods as the sun rises and catches the tree tops – I found myself practically eye-to-eye with a pair of buzzards circling very close. They were a magnificent sight in the bright morning sun, but I was waiting for the true fun to begin. Raptors at 11 o'clock, black leader: scramble, scramble! However, there was not a crow, rook, or even a jackdaw in sight, just a pair of magpies sitting in an oak tree, apparently enjoying the sun. It was a very cold morning, true, but the absence of corvid harassment seemed unnatural, a dereliction of duty.

Then, as if out of nowhere, a brown shape buzzed the buzzards at great speed. Then, another. Vroom! Vroom! As the two aggressors pulled out of their dive, it became apparent that the astonished buzzards were under attack from a pair of sparrowhawks. Now, it's one thing to be mocked by crows, quite another to be assaulted by serious if smaller predators, so the buzzards cleared off pretty smartly, with the sparrowhawks pursuing them all the way. I had never seen anything quite like it. And there were still no crows in sight, just those two basking magpies, casually adjusting their shades.

At which point, the penny dropped. Now, crows are clever, but magpies are wicked smart. They're the streetwise entrepreneurs, the wide boys, the sharp-suited wheeler-dealers of the crow world. Check the classy fevvers, bird! Lookin' f'summink shiny, eh, bruv? Looking at that smug pair on their sunny branch, I realised what was going on: the magpies had cut a two-way deal, and sub-contracted buzzard-harassment to the sparrowhawks. Clever! But what grisly price the sparrowhawks had demanded in return I shudder to think.