Crow country - Mark Cocker

Read Mark Cocker's brilliant description of his journeys in search of rooks, crows and ravens, birds that obsessed him and changed his life for ever.

One night Mark Cocker followed the roiling, deafening flock of rooks and jackdaws which regularly passed over his Norfolk home on their way to roost in the Yare valley. From the moment he watched the multitudes blossom as a mysterious dark flower above the woods, these gloriously commonplace birds became for Cocker a fixation and a way of life. Journeying across Britain, through spectacular failures, magical successes and epiphanies, Cocker uncovers the mysteries of these birds' inner lives.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2008 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE