Jackdaw

When: All year round

Scientific name: Corvus monedula

Gaelic name: Cathag; Cnaimh-fhitheach

Length: 30 - 34cm  Wingspan: 64 - 73cm

Where: Rooftops and large trees in small towns and villages around the Inner Forth

If you had to choose one sound to describe the wildlife in a town it might be be 'chack'. A raucous, many-voiced 'chack' that explodes from rooftops, trees, even telegraph wires.

Jackdaws, which make the sound, love small towns and villages, roosting in the tall trees in the parks, nesting in the chimneypots of those whose fires stay unlit, and hanging about on rooftops like bored teenagers waiting for some action. The British Trust for Ornithology says they love living in villages - near to people, but also near to fields where they forage in unruly groups for grassland invertebrates.

Jackdaws get little attention. They're too common - with over 500,000 pairs in the UK at the last count. But look closely and they are quite stunning. From a distance they appear to be black, but they actually have a steely grey, lawyer's wig on the nape of their necks that marks them out from the bigger crows and rooks. When they feed they spear the ground with their short, spikey beaks, moving like clockwork toys: walk, stop, probe, look about... walk, stop, probe, look about. The field guide describes they gait as 'jaunty', but it looks more like a military goose-step.

They pair for life, and stay in their couples all through the year, so you will nearly always see them sitting in pairs in the trees. Their scientific name, Corvus monedula, means 'raven that eats money', a nod perhaps to their reputation as thieves, stealing jewellery and money to decorate their nests. This trait may have been the origin of the Greek myth of Arne of Thrace, who was turned into a jackdaw after she shopped her country to Minos of Crete in return for a bag of gold. It's a great story - far from being commoners and rogues, we are surrounded by Greek princesses in disguise!