Country diary: Jackdaws carve up the sky as dusk descends on the moors | Richard Smyth

Eldwick Crag, West Yorkshire: In the low light and the high wind, these corvids are preparing to roost for the night. And they seem to be enjoying themselves Jackdaws like blustery weather the same way dolphins love choppy seas. There are faster flyers and more graceful flyers, but I can’t think of a bird that just enjoys flying as much as a jackdaw does. They bob and bank and yaw and wheel. And right now it’s roosting time in the copse above the quarry. A jackdaw roost , or rather the prelude to the roost, the bedtime gathering, the swirl of small, clacking crows above and about the trees, like particles about to be drawn into a plughole , isn’t a murmuration