My late father developed a feeding ritual for a crow that lasted for over a decade and was prompted entirely by the crow’s decision to stand in a particular position, which he would only do if he observed my father in the kitchen. It happened a few times a week on the crow’s own schedule, the same way every time.

There were no gifts but over the years we did witness this crow clearly trying to teach its very dependent growing child how to work the human. Ultimately it never succeeded, and we presume this crow eventually either passed on or moved on. But one of the gaggle of jealous magpies who observed the process did take up the role. Being more timid it didn’t simply stand and wait, but would appear, circle the feeding spot until it got my father’s attention, fly up to one specific branch and wait, but otherwise repeat the process it observed. That went on for a couple of years.

The process itself varied according to what food was thrown out, but the crow slowly developed a particularly clever strategy for carrying off whole stale bread crusts by dragging it to a water bowl, moistening then trimming and diagonally cutting a slot into the bread from one corner almost all the way to the other, such that it could hang either side of the beak in a balanced fashion; the magpie that took over learned this by observation and attempted it from day one.