We recentlt took these amazing photographs of a Jackdaw hard at work in the farmyard of Vishwell Farm on our annual chimney sweeping visit to south Wales. They truly are amazing industrious creatures and can fill a chimney full of collected material in a short space of time in order to make a nest. In the photographs we can see a Jackdaw pulling fur from the back of a cow whilst its was feeding, with now ill effects to the cow. They will then use this material to line the top of a nest which they have obviously constructed in a chimney somewhere locally. We watch this happening for a little time and saw a pair of Jackdaws going to and from the farmyard collecting cow fur!

Nest building in UK chimneys would appear to be predominantly a feature of Jackdaw nesting habits and involves them posting large quantities of varying size sticks down chimneys until the lodge somewhere in the chimney (frequently right at the bottom if there are no significant turns in the chimney). In this case the particular farmhouse chimney was 10 and a half meters tall and was filled from top to bottom with nest material. This can clearly be seen in the photo’s. The problem with these birds is that once they have found a suitable chimney for nesting, they tend to return to that chimney to nest year after year.

Jackdaws are a member of the Crow Family – Interestingly, the Crow family, or to give them their Latin taxonomic name Corvidae family include; crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. The crow family are singled out for their somewhat remarkable intelligence. Specifically, members of the family have demonstrated self-awareness in mirror tests (European magpies) and tool-making ability (e.g., crows and rooks), skills which until recently were thought to be possessed only by humans and a few other higher mammals. Their total brain-to-body mass ratio is equal to that of non-human great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than that of humans.