Country diary: The sheep's demise is good news for the ravenous locals

Buxton, Derbyshire: I spend hours watching these complex birds picking at the carcass, resting and hopping comicallyGiven their exposure to the most miserable conditions, particularly the relentlessly waterlogged ground and overgrazed sward, I'm surprised that the dead sheep on nearby fields numbered just four last month. One upside to this mortality was that the local ravens made light weather of a sodden winter."From a worm to a whale" is the phrase that best summarises the astonishing prey range taken by the world's largest songbird. A scour of my library, however, threw up two delicious titbits that I've never previously encountered: vulture vomit and an American passage that talked of ravens "fighting for the steaming dung as soon as dropped by dogs". Continue reading...