Woolfson accidentally fell into living with birds in her house in Edinburgh, first doves (doves breed faster than rabbits. Anyone who knows anyone who keeps doves will be asked, someday, if they would like some excess doves) then storebought parrot-type birds, then rescued corvids.
There is some reflection of the kind that stands for 'deep thoughts' here, but most of it is reflection doing a good imitation of clear glass: just what the birds did, what the people did, what the people thought at the time. I am as sorry as Woolfson that we can't ask what the birds thought, because the evidence that the smarter animals, corvids among them, have some kind of self-image and concept of other beings' plans and intents has convinced me.
Living with birds -- 'keeping' is not a strong enough term -- is, clearly, not for the tidy. Corvids cache. They cache a little of everything they like, anywhere they can, so that the house has the residue of old squishes under all the carpets and curtains, and a hole in one wall for a rook to post long-term hoard into. I felt a little squeamish, even while I was grateful that someone was willing to live so much closer to the birds' temperament, to see what they would do.
Allowing bird behavior makes a bit more sense in a house built basically of stone, therefore less fragile and already uncomfortable:
The Glasgow house where I was brought up had, in the way of houses of the time, no heating, only inadequate fireplaces, more of them unused, and a large stove in the kitchen. The house was large, built of stone and, winter or summer, glacially cold. The possibility of installing heating was, as I recall, briefly discussed, my father's reluctance to have the Arts and Crafts panelling warped by the drying effects of central heating eventually overriding all other considerations, and so we continued to endure the almost universal experience of Scottish life of the time, ice on the insides of bedroom windows, fierce dashes from bed to clothes, the only warm piece of the anatomy at bathtime being the portion submerged. [...] I don't remember what we wore but I do remember that my father, concerned for their comfort and well-being, insisted that our dogs, three of them, wore sweaters indoors.
Someone inured to that much discomfort can live with smallish wild animals. The magpie Spike was almost too wild to live with humans, much as they loved him:
Han [...] spent time practising kung fu. [...] It became her habit of an evening, before Spike's bedtime, to engage with him in a bout of combat, an enterprise that delighted him since he was unfailingly up for a fight. She would initiate the bout by punching the air near his head, one side, then the other, just enough to enrage him [...] his the advantage in proper flight, hurling himself towards her, eyes yellow and protected, squeaking with martial fury, wings a blur and rustle of crisp, bright feather. Wham! Wham! He'd squeak frenetically, shouting random words -- 'Smike! Oy! Oy! Spikey! Hello! Hello!' -- as he attacked her moving fists, diving for her head as she leapt and danced away from him. [...] all the more strange and thrilling perhaps because of the imbalance in size of the participants, their cultural diversity, or the fact that one of them at least had failed to master the important philosophical requirements of the martial arts.
Daughter Han won international trophies, which is only just for someone with a training program you would expect of Li Po.
Find in a Library: Corvus.
So wrote clew in Science.