The common myna

The common myna which, I have read, is a communal nester, gorges in quantity on the streets of the city. Yesterday morning I saw one in the gutter pecking at the soft, flecked turd of a dog that had probably been eating a boil-up of vegetables. In the afternoon I saw another pulling flesh from a chicken wing near a telephone booth.

The balding one I saw crossing the road with his several mates only two days before had the look of someone determined to behave as if he hadn’t been drinking – or at least as someone who doesn’t need his drink to sound like the most knowledgeable, prescient, firm-thinking figure that anyone has met in the ornithological world.