Jackdaws over Garrigill

Large flocks of jackdaws live in the valley where I live and sometimes on windy days they soar up into the air in great swirling flocks before swooping down to land in particular trees selected for reasons best known to them. I think they must be very social and their tree gatherings occasions for exchanging gossip and useful information. Most of the year they are in pairs.

This painting imagines them from a jackdaw’s eye view on a summer’s day in early July when the hay meadows are being mown as they have been every year for hundreds if not thousands of years. The oldest flower and hay meadows in the North Pennines are believed to have been cultivated continuously for the last 4000 years. How many generations of jackdaws have been around to witness that?