Nearly mature, you can just see it is still a little brown on the wing tips as they turn black. This is a very different bird to our magpie. They hunt on the wing, and will kill more than they can eat when there is abundance, and hang the extra 'meat' in trees resembling meat hung on a butchers hook, hence their name.
However, like our magpie, they are gorgeous song birds.
Lovely shot of this beautiful bird. Do they at least come ack to eat their hung up bits? It sounds like our farmers who hand up meat to dry and preserve for later eating when dried. Biltong
@beryl for some reason just in this particular shot you can't quite see the distinctive hook on the end of the beak which makes them rather different to the crow
