Whilst the book is well written I can only give a one star rating as it was not an enjoyable read; in fact I had to push through even with skimming and jumping chapters. Anyone expecting a memoir similar to Chloe Daltons Raising Hare will be sorely disappointed. I consider myself an intelligent person but the writing is so academic for large swathes of the book it reads more like a science project. Constant references to authors takes the book off at tangents with overlong sentences that are peppered with commas so that by the time you get to a full stop the meaning has been almost forgotten. Whilst the insertion of scientific facts was interesting to a point they took up too much of the book and if I'm honest, did Woolfson actually understand fully what she was writing or merely regurgitating her research. ? I would have preferred more on the birds and how life was with them than endless rhetoric on the workings of birds brains, theology etc. What there was of life with the Spike and Chicken was interesting, informative and entertaining, I just wish there could have been more of it. Overall it was frankly, a boring read interspersed with a few real life inserts. Very disappointing especially as I love corvids and this book was gifted to me.