House crows and palm squirrels

There are two creatures that you cannot avoid in Colombo: the house crow and the palm squirrel. The crows are pretty hard to love as, despite being a fine glossy blue-black with slate grey parts, they are opportunistic in the extreme, little scared of humans and their beaks are thick enough and tough enough looking that you wouldn't want to chance a jab - especially when at face height, on a fence for example. The squirrel is half the size, has endearing Chip 'N' Dale stripes and a full tail and is altogether more timid. They emit a cheeping sound that I constantly mistook for a bird at first. At least neither one suffers from the rattiness that so often afflicts urban animals, like the urban squirrels and foxes of the UK for example.