Paresh Churi is a Mahim-based landscape designer who graduated in statistics, but later studied plant and animal taxonomy. Recently, his illustration of Dichrostachys cinerea (thorny sickle bush) was chosen for display at Florilegium, Royal Botanical garden, UK. But, none of these varied interests define Churi, as much as his lifelong identification with crows. So intense is his love for the scavenger bird that his research papers have specially addressed three types of butterflies, which are called crows, two of which come on the window pane of his Ram Mandir building and surrounding green lanes of Mahim. "They are black in colour and I love watching them as I work from home. They remind me of the crows I followed while walking to the Balmohan Vidya Mandir School 30 years ago, when Mahim was a greener hospitable home to migratory birds."

Churi, 41, passionately follows crows every day, clicks their photos in myriad moods, despite being the busy director of his landscape design company. His house allows free entry to all crows, not to forget the bolder ones, which eat ghee-soaked wicks in the silver diya. Often, they pick the diya and abandon it on the neighbour's balcony, from where it is routinely reinstated. He prides on live footage of crow movements, nesting and feeding behaviour and food storage techniques. He has noticed a tendency of crows to take free BEST bus rides. "I have seen them enjoying the top double decker ride; in fact, I wait at the Plaza cinema junction to see many of them alight vehicles to change routes," says Churi, who has also filmed armies of crows flying at breakneck speed from
Shivaji Park to Mahim, in pursuit of the Bhavnagari gathiyan offered by a feeder on Mahim beach. Churi has captured crows feasting on mithai during the pitru paksha, the fortnight when Hindus feed crows as a token of respect to departed ancestors.