Upping sticks

FURTHER to your excellent article on corvids (March 30 and Letters, April 20 and May 4), I was fascinated by crows nesting in a Scots pine in our garden. The noise was deafening, murder did occur once and, eventually, three enormous nests were constructed. Two weeks ago, we awoke to utter silence —the birds had flown and the nests had disappeared. Happy at the prospect of easy kindling, I was amazed to find not a single stick on the ground beneath or near the tree. Have we inadvertently discovered the origin of the phrase to ‘up sticks’? R. M. Monaghan, by email