Samual Stone's Image

Samual Stone (UK) watches as a jackdaw brings stones to its nest.

Samual had been keeping an eye on a hole in the trunk of a half-fallen willow tree in London’s Bushy Park.

He’d seen a pair of jackdaws visiting with their beaks full of hair taken from the coats of local deer.

Jackdaws are highly intelligent and adaptable. They build new nests each year from all sorts of materials: twigs, branches, feathers, wool, moss, mud and animal dung. This pair kept adding rocks to theirs.

Samual was fascinated by the way in which the jackdaw had seemingly organised them into a size order in its beak.