You can't go far along the roads just now without catching glimpses of rooks and their nests. Often one on the nest, the other, presumably the male, sitting close by. And more and more, it seems, small colonies of these birds have descended from the traditional high trees, and may be nesting about fifteen feet above the ground in ash trees. It may be nesting time, but, according to the Wildlife Service, from February 1st to 31st May, 1997, you may shoot these birds on your land for "serious damage to various cereal crops, brassicas and various root crops such as potatoes and beet." Also from February 1st to May 15th, you may use rifle or shotgun to kill them for damage to live stock feedlots. Presumably feeding troughs or whatever. The rook is the crow with the baggy trousers, so to speak and the white patch around the base of its beak.
The hooded or grey crow may be shot, caught with a cage trap, (including use of decoys) and either poisoned or given anaesthetic bait. (The latter two methods require special permit). His sins are being a threat to public health and spreader of animal diseases; serious damage to livestock and serious damage to fauna, notably the nests and young of game birds. The magpie can have the same treatment meted out to it.
Writers on bird life point out that while rooks do eat seeds, a large part of their diet is composed of insects and grubs and the larvae of creatures which are injurious to crops. Wireworms and leather jackets are mentioned in this connection. David Cabot reckons that we have about 520,000 breeding pairs scattered throughout the country side, which certainly makes them, as he writes, "an integral part of the Irish agricultural landscape."
If you bought a house in the country which held a rookery in its trees, what would you do? Francesca Greenoak in All the Birds of the Air (Penguin) writes that a rookery on your land is not thought of as an especially good omen, but the desertion of a rookery is most certainly a bad sign, corresponding to rats leaving a ship. They are tenacious birds, trying again and again, in spite of their shape and size and huge claws to hang suspended under the bird feeders as the blue tits and others do. With over a million of them around, they are not likely to be wiped out. Pigeons and Jack daws on another day.