The Rook At Home

Many elegant, dapper birds come to the hanging feeders; occasionally a rook looks in

Many elegant, dapper birds come to the hanging feeders; occasionally a rook looks in. With his quaint waddling gait and his baggy trousers, this adds some comedy to the proceedings, for, not content to graze on peanuts or seeds which have fallen while the cages were being filled, he (or she) insists to having a go and clutches desperately with claws which are too thick, perhaps, for the mesh of wire. Anyway, this came to mind when someone in the car remarked on the behaviour of the rooks as Meath was traversed. They were, all along the road, sitting on trees, as thick nearly as leaves. "Just sunning themselves," was a verdict, for it was indeed, in those parts, a lovely balmy day, believe it or not. Anyway, not only were they thick along the roads but at the stopping point it was seen that the same was the case in trees across nearby fields. "Just sunning themselves" might indeed be the answer.

There wasn't any wind to allow them to enjoy their regular aerial capers; the upward swoops and the downward dive and the circling and wheeling. Anyway, who can read a rook's mind? Gilbert White of Selborne in southern England is often cited. And, indeed, a writer in 1914 thought that he needed to be introduced and explained to younger readers, who might be put off by White's "quaint and magisterial air." So he produced a book which comments on the text and gives ideas of his own, for he, Marcus Woodward by name, was a lively writer himself. Indeed, he starts his book, In Nature's Way, with the observation that in the early part of the year, "rooks return to their nest-trees and begin to rebuild their leaky cradles - with much excited clamouring and cawing, plundering and marauding. The nest-trees may have bee deserted since the writer before. Rooks like to nest high, and, in winter, when trees are leafless, the exposed nests would be draughty roosting-places. So they go into winter roosting quarters, several rookeries often joining forces, occasionally - perhaps every day - paying visits to the real home".

The old hands take over their nests, the writer says, with assurance and while they may plunder other nests for twigs, no one plunders theirs. "Calm assurance" marks out the old experienced pairs. The writer describes the nest as being about two feet across and lined with dry grass or moss. He is lucid and apparently learned. This edition published in 1922 by Arthur Pearson Ltd.