Crow among the frangipani

Crows do not usually get flowers. They get rubbish bins, power lines, and the tops of dead trees. This one had settled in a frangipani in full bloom, and for once the bird was the darkest thing in a bright frame instead of the other way round.

The Large-billed Crow is the crow of Thailand, bigger and heavier-billed than the carrion crow of Europe, with a call that is deeper and hoarser. It is intelligent in the way all crows are: it watched me set up, judged the distance, and stayed just outside it.

Black bird, white flowers, green leaves, and a sky gone to white behind them. Three colours, and one of them is not a colour.