Let's discuss wind. But come, I intend no cheap humour here. I am not discussing flatulence, I want to talk about the ways the birds have been farting about. As the big winds blew across the country this week, most birds have wisely kept their heads down. But not the jackdaws. For them, a big wind is a glorious opportunity for farting about.

Every time I have been out and about this week, doing the Marcel Marceau man-walks-into-wind mime, I have heard the jackdaws shouting “Jack!” at each other in triumphant monosyllables as they rode the wind like surfers. They look like a bundle of black rags helpless in the grip of the wind: but they are anything but. As you watch you see the purpose behind what they are doing: and the purpose is to have no purpose whatsoever. They allow the wind to carry them, it seems, for out-of-control miles: and then they casually climb a hundred feet as if gravity had suddenly gone into reverse, whereupon they shut down and drop like stones. Then they do it all over again, only different.

Explain to me, if you can, the biological function. Be as reductionist as you like. But no, they are not seeking mates, they are not establishing territory, they are not working on the dominance hierarchy, they are not looking for food or shelter, they are not going from A to B. They are flying for the sake of flying.

It is the ultimate expression of a skill they have learnt, said the great ethologist, Konrad Lorenz, in a famous passage: and they do it “playfully and without effort, just to spite the stupid wind”. They do it for the same reason that humans go skiing, or go swimming, or ride horses: because it's the most marvellous fun.

Am I being fanciful here? Am I being hopelessly anthropomorphic? But surely animals know about enjoyment: anybody who has owned a dog knows that an animal can have good times and bad times; also that an animal can do pointless things for the sheer pleasure of it.

Animals surely greet the best parts of their lives with enjoyment: and surely actively seek out pleasurable things. If you disagree, I can only assume that you don't find food and sex pleasurable. I remember watching courting lions: the female got up and treated the male to a sort of sinuous rub-up, stirring him into brief and vigorous action. At its conclusion the female disengaged, rolled on to her back and squirmed, rather like one of Pan's People writhing about in exiguous garments in Top of the Pops.

Some one remarked facetiously: “She looked like she really enjoyed that.” But there is no question that the lioness did. Speaking as someone who has given expression to basic instincts, I can conform that this is frequently enjoyable. Why on earth should animals not be given the same reward for obeying biological commands? We seek to drive rifts between ourselves and other animals, and frequently do so where none exists.

These jackdaws were savouring the exhilaration of being alive and being wild and being ever-so-slightly crazy. The tossed-and-blown masters of the wind filled the air with the sound of their pleasure, and it was an expression of joy. The birds don't just look as if they flying for the simple joy of it: they really are doing so. To assume anything else is to demean our own pleasures and ourselves.

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