Pet Crow

A pet crow responds to its owner

Anthony Fisher keeps a pet crow at his home in Devon. The crow is considered to be among the world’s most intelligent animals but they are rather noisy to keep owing to their harsh caw which can make their owner less than chirpy. In pairs they are aggressive and quarrelsome. Believed to have originated in central Asia, the crow is part of the corvus species which includes the chough, jackdaw, jay, nutcracker, magpie, raven and rook.

The Manciple’s Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales tells of the manciple, a purchasing agent for a law court, who recounts a fable about Phoebus Apollo and his pet crow with the moral of the story a warning to those who gossip.