Meet Cornelius: The friendly jackdaw causing a flap on Portland

IN true celebrity style, Cornelius does not deign to turn up for an interview with the local press.

He’s out, somewhere on Portland, in one of his many surrogate roosts on the island, or perhaps enjoying a sip of beer in one of the local pubs he is known to frequent.

It might be for the best. He would undoubtedly have made a challenging interviewee.

“He comes and goes as he pleases,” said Sharon Murray, who with partner Jeff Biddiscombe, reared Cornelius from the tender age of just one week.

The charismatic bird could not be described as a true Portlander by traditionalists, since he was born in Somerset, but that hasn’t stopped him becoming a fast favourite with the locals.

But his cheerful demeanour hides a rough start in life.

“My dad, who lives in Somerset, came on the nest with three chicks, all crying out for their mother,” Sharon explained. “When it became clear that the mum wasn’t coming back he took them in.”

To help, Sharon took two of the chicks, while her dad reared the other. When they were a little older, one was given to a friend of Jeff. The other became Cornelius.

“He’s named after a character in Planet of the Apes,” Jeff said. “It just suits him completely.”

Cornelius soon became part of the family – which includes children Wynter, 19, Kian, 16, Tali, 14, Tierney, 11, and Flint, five, as well as dog Willow and a peacock which lives in the garden.

As a chick, Cornelius would rest in Jeff’s hand – or beard – and go to sleep. Now his roost of choice is a piece of driftwood which decorates the wall of the family’s dining room.

Sharon fed him every half hour with softened dog biscuits and mealworms and the couple were there when he took his first hesitant flight from the headboard on their four poster bed.

“It was like watching a baby take his first steps,” said Jeff. “He was sitting there, you could see he wanted to do it, but didn’t quite have the confidence.”

He soon learned to handle his wings and, if reports on social media are anything to go by, he hasn’t stopped since.

Jeff set up a Facebook page, called Introducing Cornelius, the friendly jackdaw of Easton, when the bird’s flights took him further and further from home.

It now has more than 600 likes and dozens of people have posted pictures and videos of him visiting them all over the island.

Jeff said: “He suddenly discovered that his world wasn’t limited to the house and the garden. He’s a wild animal at the end of the day, we let him roam free, and we needed to let people know that, while he is friendly and tame, he has a good peck on him if he feels threatened.”

Cornelius comes home to roost most nights, but his explorations have twice caused his adoptive family to worry.

Sharon said: “When he first started going out exploring, he disappeared for about three or four days. We found out through Facebook that he was in Southwell, so maybe he had gone a little further than he was used to and got lost.

“Another time we lost him for a few weeks and he turned up in Preston. It does seem a long way for a jackdaw to fly so we were wondering if someone caught him and then let him go.”

Again, Facebook helped to track him down, and Jeff brought him home to Portland.

“Cornelius is a brilliant pet,” said Jeff. “He’s intelligent, he will come when you call him, and he’s mischievous, a real character. If you have something then he wants it, and he’ll take it off you.

“He’s fascinating to watch – you can almost see the cogs turning as he figures something out, like how to open the lid of a plastic tub.

“You look at other jackdaws and think their day must be filled with looking for food, but Cornelius doesn’t have that problem, because everyone feeds him. So he has the time to be clever and curious.”

Sharon has reared other birds in the past, but they came to her as older chicks, and none before Cornelius chose to stick around after they learnt to fly.

Jeff added: “I think they had that bond when he was so young, that he associates with humans now. I hope he sticks around. He makes life very interesting.”