The jackdaw takes three hops and is airborne, swinging into a warm dry wind, back over the fence to the northern side of the plateau. Jackdaws and rooks lift from careful stepping into the wind to fly and call, mingling with singing voices from the school nearby. The corvids are shadowing the sheep, Soay/Hebridean cross breeds that graze the Old Oswestry hillfort or Hen Ddinas (Old City in Welsh). Black birds, black sheep, green grass.

This scene echoes through a thousand years of occupation until the Roman conquest on this high space ringed with earthwork ramparts. The sheep are the closest to those farmed by the iron age tribal people of the Cornovii – the people of the horn. Impressive and tough, these horned black sheep step out of history with the same confidence in their place here as the birds.

Down at the Gatacre allotments, across the road from where the children sing, another creature takes to the air. The scarlet tiger moth, Callimorpha dominula, has silky-black wings with a green sheen, white and yellow markings, and bright scarlet hindwings. Part burlesque, part pirate, this bohemian moth looks as if it were painted by David Hockney and flies during sunny afternoons from May to July. Its yellow and black striped caterpillars particularly like comfrey, which is abundant on the allotments for its traditional use as a fertiliser.

This year has been particularly good for scarlet tigers, and they are synanthropic, living alongside people to benefit from our environments. They have been consolidating and increasing their range around the fringes of English towns by widening their diet to include garden plants, and this allotment is a great example. Situated in the shadow of the hillfort, it’s also an example of how history is not exclusive to people, but includes the lives of our fellow travellers – the crow tribes, the sheep, the moths, who bear witness to this.

As if to make the point about synanthropy as an old kinship, a spent tiger moth on the allotment is snatched up by a blackbird. He cocks his head so that we watch each other. He has a beak full of scarlet wings and worms. I have a bag of salad greens and raspberries.