Hey Bill, I might have a slight problem. My Murkrow likes to gather shiny things, as they do, and I had to leave for a trip. My sister had come by to make sure that Murkrow had food, water, and was played with while I was gone. When I returned Murkrow has taken over a room with shinies. My sister hadn’t checked on Murkrow’s nest since Murkrow doesn’t like other people near their shinies. Anyway, I have managed to remove the knives they got but any advise on working with Mirkrow to shrink nest.

Unfortunately, anonymous, your fate is completely inescapable. You will simply have to live indefinitely with your new hoard of shiny objects.

On a serious note (please don’t look at me like that, Lanette), while murkrow are intelligent creatures, they don’t exactly keep thorough inventory of what’s actually in their collection. You could very well shrink your murkrow’s collection by covertly taking items out of it, so long as you space removals out enough for them to not notice.

Alternatively, if you’d like to confront the problem a little more directly (which you may need to do in order to avoid having your murkrow add more items to their collection in the interim), approach the problem as you would any other bad habit. Clearly establish why you can’t keep large collections, and train your murkrow to resist taking new objects. Reward your murkrow every time they resist or every time they willingly give up an item (the latter especially to cement the idea that downsizing is a good thing). Perhaps also go over their collection, show them which items you wish to discard first, and reward them for allowing you to take them. (Naturally, be firm—but not intimidating—if they retaliate, either because you’ve approached their hoard or because they refuse to let you take items away.)

Best of luck, anonymous!