Back in the very early 1970s, in Manchester, my then-girlfriend had a brother-in-law who made a living stealing lead from the roofs of parish churches. Well, it made him a living before he slipped off one particular parish roof and died on the pavement below. I hadn’t thought of him for a while, but he came to mind this morning.
The entrance to our underground parking is a wooden structure that has seen far better days. The roof is made of tin, covered some twenty-odd years ago, by tar paper or something similar, and it is in terrible shape. I look out onto it every day through my home-office window. Some commotion made me look out today, and there were two large crows picking at something, squabbling.
I thought that they had a small bird that they were tearing apart. But looking more closely, I saw that they were actually fighting over bits of loose tar paper. The bigger one flew away with a full mouth load of stuff. The other stayed around and started pulling small sheets of the tar paper off the roof.
I can only guess they use them as nesting materials.