Saved for later

SIR – Bob Farey from Kettering (Letters, February 7) records the curious antics of a magpie.

We have a caravan on a leisure park near Wrexham. My wife found a cheese and onion pasty in the fridge which was past its use-by date. Rather than waste it, she chopped it up and put it out for the birds. Within a few minutes down came a rook, which took a piece of pasty and flew to the base of a tree.

Parting the grass at the base of the tree with its beak, it pushed in the pasty, swept the grass back over the pasty with its beak, and completed the operation by trampling the grass down. The exercise was then repeated with another piece of pasty, at the next tree. This process continued until all the pasty was gone.

A few days later we saw the rook at the first tree, retrieving the pasty. Buckley, Flintshire