Numbers of this corvid in our area have been steadily increasing! I well remember the day, when I was much younger, that crows were hardly seen in urban areas and you were lucky to get within 100 meters of them in the rural areas!

Ooops! the other one got away before I found my words. In my youth crows and magpies were rural birds. You could get much closer to them if you didn't have a firearm. Much to my grandmother's chagrin, I would sit in her pantry and pick 'them varmints off the windmill with my .22, a Remington pump I still have.