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| Daily Telegraph feature writer Joe Shute |
A RETURNEE to this year's Birdfair was former newspaper crime correspondent Joe Shute who is now a roving senior staff feature writer with The Daily Telegraph.
He was back at Rutland Water to promote his highly successful books about ravens - A Shadow Above - which has now been reprinted as a paperback.
The significance of ravens is reflected in numerous place names, such as Ravenscar, as well as in everyday words such as ravenous.
It used to be thought that the intelligence of a bird species depended on the size of its brain, but Joe said that latest research indicated that it is the number of neurons within a brain that counts.
A raven's brain is packed with no fewer than two billion neurons which explains why it such a clever species.
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The author regaled the audience with anecdotes about the bird's remarkable talents and affectionate nature.
He cited the case of a former keeper of ravens at the Tower of London, who six yeas after he had left the position, decide to pay a return to his former workplace.
Such was the remarkable memory and affection of one the ravens that, from a distance of 200 metres, it recognised its former keeper amid a sea of faces, flapped over to him, sat on his shoulder and nuzzled his cheek.
* Scroll back for more reports from Birdfair 2019
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