A delightfully written account of an unusual woman (a trawl on the Internet reveals a small, neat, blonde woman) who lives in cold Aberdeen in Scotland, seems to speak Chinese, has a Jewish connection, is married with two daughters and lives with birds. Outside she has a dove-cot with white doves (who don’t deserve their symbolic association with peace she soon finds out) and inside there is a cockatiel who belongs to a daughter, and an assortment of corvids (who don’t deserve their sinister reputation) that overlap in time and space – a rook called Chicken, a magpie called Spike and a crow called Ziki.
While I was reading it, it reminded me of some of the blogs that I have come across – little gems of information that come every few days or weeks until one feels one is somehow involved. And my dip into the Internet reveals that Esther Woolfson does indeed have a blog http://estherwoolfson.blogspot.com/ so one can continue to follow the lives of her rescued birds and their owner, interspersed with tidbits of natural history and bird-lore. 
While I was reading it, it reminded me of some of the blogs that I have come across – little gems of information that come every few days or weeks until one feels one is somehow involved. And my dip into the Internet reveals that Esther Woolfson does indeed have a blog http://estherwoolfson.blogspot.com/ so one can continue to follow the lives of her rescued birds and their owner, interspersed with tidbits of natural history and bird-lore. 
As Woolfson observes, one is often highly informed and knowledgeable about the intimate lives of rare and endangered animals in exotic and faraway places, but extremely ignorant of the nature right outside the bedroom window. I will never look at a crow in the same way again.
Comment on Corvus by Esther Woolfson (Granta 2008) by Caroline.
My rating: 3.5
Book no 2184 (Sue W)
