Most little girls will exchange bracelets and
gifts with their closest friends, but one eight-year-old has been
receiving trinkets from a more unusual source - the birds in her
garden.
Gabi Mann, from Seattle, Washington, feeds the
crows that visit her home with peanuts and they bring her gifts in
exchange.
The youngster has built up collection of more
than 70 shiny beads, buttons, pieces of metal, brightly coloured
plastic and foam - all left for her by her corvid
companions.
Among her most prized presents from the
neighbourhood crows is a pearl-coloured heart.
'It's showing me how much they love me,' Gabi
told the podcast The bittersweet life and the BBc. 'They give
me all the special stuff you could ever find.
'We know these are from the crows that sometimes
they are rusted and dirty and nothing like what a person would
carry around. Sometimes we find them on the bird
feeder.'
The image above shows just some of Gabi's favourite
items left for her by birds in exchange for peanuts
Her strange relationship with the birds began in
2011 when as a four-year-old she would accidentally drop
food.
Groups of crows began loitering around the family
house hoping to pick up the scraps Gabi left behind. When she
started going to school, Gabi began feeding them her
lunch.
The birds then started lining up to wait for the
youngster to get off her bus at the end of the school
day.
Two years later Gabi and her mother Lisa began
leaving food outside in their garden on a daily basis - filling the
bird bath with water and leaving peanuts on feeders.
As Gabi throws the food for the birds, crowds of
crows - known as a murder - gather on telephone lines and the
nearby fence.
In return the crows now leave trinkets on the
empty bird feeder - including a broken light bulb, earrings, pieces
of Lego, rusted screws, polished rocks and glass beads.
Gabi keeps all of the bits in carefully labelled
pots and ranks them according to her favourite.
She said: 'I think they know my favourite colour
- blue. They know that I like Lego and shiny things. They are my
type.'
Crows are known to be highly intelligent
creatures - capable of solving complex puzzles and problems to
obtain food.
Experts say they can often form strong bonds with
people that feed them, but equally can mark out those that they
consider a threat.
People who have thrown stones at crows or tried
to help an injured chick can find themselves mobbed by the
creatures for weeks or even years afterwards.
In perhaps the most astonishing story, however,
Gabi's mother Lisa describes how the crows in their neighbourhood
appear to keep watch over the family.
She said that on one occassion she had been out
taking photographs of an eagle when she dropped her lens cap on the
floor and forgot to pick it up before walking home.
She said: 'About an hour later I went back
outside to see if I could find it and a crow had put it on the side
of one of the bird baths.
'I looked at the surveillence video to find out
if it was a crow and you can see it bring it into the yard, walk it
to the bird bath and spends time rinsing the lens cap and puts it
on the side of the bird bath. It was pretty impressive.
'I'm sure it was intentional. They watch us all
the time.'
Gabi herself believes her relationship with the
crows has given her a special bond with the natural world and calls
herself Nature Girl.
She is highly protective of the gifts she has
received from the birds, not allowing anyone to touch the
trinkets.
Her mother said: 'For the most part the common
denominator is that they are shiney and small enough to fit in
their mouth.'
Professor John Marzluff, an expert on avian
social ecology at the University of Washington, said he believes
the crows may be offering up the gifts as they would to a potential
mate.
Speaking to The BitterSweet Life podcast, he
said: 'I have seen an awful lot of things crows bring people. They
do bring gifts whether it is always going to happen, I don't think
so.
'Certain individual crows the bond they form with
that person might be more of a courtship bond where they are
bringing presents like they would for their mates.
'For some people they are dead baby birds and
other people they get shiny pendants or beautiful
glass.'
For anyone hoping to form a bond with some
corvids, he has some advice.
'The best thing you can do if you want to form a
bond with a crow is to be consistent in rewarding them for whatever
the action is with a few peanuts in the shell,' he said.
'They like that food as it is a high fat high
energy food and it makes noise when you throw it on the ground.They
quickly habituate to your routine. They will follow
you.'