Pica pica

There was a lot of magpie action in the square this morning - a pair were hopping about from tree to tree and conversing loudly. At one point one of them went down to the ground and started this wing-stretching thing. I would previously have assumed s/he was just doing a bit of preening, but since I'm reading Corvus (Esther Woolfson) I now know that it was probably part of an elaborate greeting ritual. They might also have been disturbed by a black bin bag that was flapping in a tree - apparently corvids assume a black flapping thing to be a dead one of their own.

A minor triumph - I managed not to listen to the news all day.