Spring: Red In Tooth And Claw

At last we have sun. Greenery showing. Hellebores, primroses, daffodils and camellias.
I need to get on and sow some vegetable seeds... the early peas and broad beans. The early potatoes are chitted and ready... just got to get their bed ready for planting.
Yesterday watched a pair of magpies building a nest in a spindly conifer down the way... they've lost nesting sites with trees coming down and people have cut down quite a lot of conifers round here. Anyway they do bury themselves into the branches, trailing long, uncooperative twigs and chucking at each other. Towards evening The Old Man watched a stand-off between them and a rook or a crow... he couldn't make out which. The bigger crow saw them off. But later I saw the magpies collecting again. Sure enough they were back in the spindly-tree... building again. Last year the pair tried three times to nest in this site. At least twice their nest was destroyed by rooks or crows...

This morning The Old Man is greeted by half a rabbit on the front path. Later I do bury the fluffy, grisly remains. Things is hotting up on the nature front.

Autumn Coming And The Rook Is Singing

It have been a good summer with hot, sunny days that finally give me squash and beans in the vegetable patch. A normal summer on this sea-surrounded bony peninsular with its mists, dews and granite hedges... do mean that precious few luscious vegetables survive the onslaught of snails and slugs. Believe me. I have tried most (non-poisonous) strategies known to woman. But at the moment, I count five squashes and some precious borlotti beans hanging from their canes.

The birds are keying into autumn activity. If you watch them you can realise that all that nesting and mating stuff doesn't just happen in spring. The sparrows in the yard have fledged their last brood  but ... The other day The Old Man did lean a ladder against the clematis that climbs the house wall in order to check out the sparrow nesting box above. Two sparrows immediately fly round him into the climber with a squawk and a chirp. The Old Man do back off immediately, thinking there must still be young in a nest in the climber itself. But after several days we come to the conclusion that the sparrow pair are minding the territorial shop. As our next door neighbour do say... they have "put their towels on the sun lounger"... staking a claim for next year's nest site.

Meanwhile... the rook do take up his singing post on a chimney or a TV aerial and he do sing his rookishly joyful song. No. Not "Caw-Caw" but a definite gruff and screamy song... It do have a rhythm and a repeat and a shape . "Ya-Ya. Yee-yeeh.." he shrieks. "Cruk-cruk.." he croons.
I wish I could give you a web-link to a recording of a rook's song but all everybody records is the mass calling in a rookery. What a shame. I love to hear the song of the rook. It is deeply uncharming and deeply celebratory.

Fledgling Song

I be woken up this morning by the feeding call of a rooklet. Aah says I. Spring have finally come despite all this cold and the grass not growing and stuff.

I have described the demented klaxon of a hungry rooklet before.

....And here it have started up again. Aah Bless. All baby birds want their food. At the moment the ground is dry again. Perhaps the juicy, chewy things be more scarce which is what has drawn Mama Rook and child to the bird feeders. Certainly badger or fox have turned the ground underneath like a ploughed field.

The Rook Be Singing Again

So I have talked before about the singing of the rook. (Singing Rook Post) And now I know that rooks sing in autumn not spring. Because here it is the same time of the year and the rook be singing again.

He/she be a groovy rook. Wherever it takes up a singing post it do let go with a gravel croak of syncopation and blues shuffle worthy of Tom Waits.

Groove, groove my blatant birdy.

Fledging and Flying

Rain and wind has stopped... for now. In fact the sun do shineth.
I be out in the garden cutting back the tropical jungle that is grass, "weeds" and so forth.

I hear the "si-seeing" that means baby-blue tits have fledged and parent tits are leading them around feeding them. Shaking of wings and frantic high-pitched "si-seeing".
"Aaah!" goes I looking on fondly.

But all baby birds want feeding from their parents. I am disturbed in my weeding by raucous screaming and gargling sounds. Sure enough, as I look up I see a rooklet on the telephone wire... flapping its wings and screeching at it's cool and indifferent parent. Such a ruckus that a young magpie (looks like an adult but shorter tail) hops into a nearby tree to see what on earth is goin' on. Well, Baby Magpie can talk.... nearly... I been hearing it and its parents' rough and gruff exchanges for quite a few days now... usually from opposing ends of the garden while Baby plays disobedient youngster... "No I don't want to come home... I's up here on the chimney and I like it."

My point is.... screaming flapping baby rooks be just the same as quivering sparrow chicks and blue tits. But the cute factor is perhaps missing. Whatever... all babies need food.

The Rook Scientific

So I'm a bit late getting downstairs this mornin... Busy swabbing out the bathroom etc. And when I gets down, The Old Man says...

"So you missed Jim Al-Khalili then..."

"You what?"

"Jim Al-Khalili... The Life Scientific.... on Radio 4... just now..."

"Yes?"

"Today talking to a scientist, Nicky Clayton about her work with crows... says they can work out problems that human children can't..."

"Damn. I likes rooks and so on. I'll have to Listen Again as they do like to say on the Radio. Or download it as a Podcast...."

What the Rook Did Next.

Rooks is clever. They work out how to do things. They innovate. In most cases... Innovation is applied to Food.

We have one of them bird feeders that is made up of two cylindrical seed holders (with individual small perches and feed-holes) which hang from two hooks at the end of a central pole.

Mostly this arrangement means that the larger birds can't sit on the perches and feed from the holes, cos they's too big ... and so the little 'uns get a look in.

But I been having my suspicions that the rooks have cracked this problem. Now and then I would look out the window and spot a rook grabbing a seed from a rhythmically swinging seed holder.

This morning I see the rascal. She maintains her grip on the central pole... or a convenient branch... leans in... grabs one of the metal perches under a feed hole .... pulls it back... and let's it go. The entire seed holder sets itself into a nice pendulum swing - and Rookie just grabs a mouthful when the feed hole returns conveniently to her beak.

Nice One, Rookie.

The Love Life of Birds

You know everyone goes on about Spring and the birds and the bees? All that lovey-doveying and twittering?

Keeping a close eye on the goings on in local bird life, I can tell you that they don't start up in Spring.

No, No. The planners amongst them start sorting out the spouse and nesting thing in the Autumn. I have seen sparrows dragging each other out of the potential nest sight by the wing this time of year. Fierce squawkings, screamings and tail pulling amongst the pushy ones in the sparrow community. We even put up our sparrow box in the autumn - hoping someone would check it out. And they did. And they came back and nested in it. I think it would have been too late by the spring. But then I am a Know-It-All in case you hadn't noticed.

I am reminded of this autumnal courtship stuff when The Old Man (Yes - he who shall be reported) points out the activity of a couple of rooks he has spotted - on a telephone wire at the end of the garden. They sidle up to each other, perusing their mutual "fitness" so to speak. There is a moment of eye-gazing and beak closeness. Then one starts the exaggerated bowing and tail-spreading thing. You know the routine? (For more detail read my Post on Wood Pigeon Wooing with this here click.) Finally there is the mock "feeding" routine. You can imagine how it goes, can't you. After all animal nature .... is in us all.

"Would my little wookiewookie like a sunflower seed?" say he, bowing and scraping.

"What is this? A seed?" say she squinting at offering. "I expect at least a leatherjacket. A fat caterpillar or something else exquisite. But a seed. A seed from that feeder over there. All ten wing flaps away. You cheapskate. You are not fit to father my rooklets. Feh. I'm off. "

And she flaps away - leaving her would-be suitor looking a little glum, all alone on his telephone wire.

The Song of the Rook

I likes rooks. People quite often don't. And I think that quite often rooks are mistakenly called "crows", (although they are a member of the wider crow family - along with magpies, jackdaws, jays, and the chough).

But rooks are often in a group. And crows are solitary. Rooks have pale beaks, not black beaks. And they're more fond of a nice tasty leatherjacket grub than a frog or chick (I think). That's what I know of rooks anyway.

Oh... and they've got this great pouch in their beaks. When they're feeding they can cram extra stuff into this pouch like a mini-pelican sack under the lower beak. We used to think there was something wrong with the bird's beak when we first spotted one loading up in this fashion. But it's just extra carrying power for taking food back to the nest.

True - I wouldn't want to live under a rookery. A lot of droppings and a lot of cawing discussion. Also - young rooks are very demanding about being fed by parent - which makes them loud and annoying. But I expect that's what Mama Rook thinks as well.

Anyway. Rooks sing.

True, it's not what most people think of as bird song, but I'm sure it's a territorial song. Just like a robin or a blackbird. And OK maybe an acquired taste, but I am touched by a singing rook.

We have one who comes regularly to the lane. And he is known to neighbours who watch out for the star turn. He'll stand on the aerial and give forth - not loud cawing- but a softer succession of cries and mutters and chucks and clicks. Then he flies off to another nearby high spot, a tree or a telegraph pole and he repeats his performance. For all the world just as a blackbird might do. And with just as much joie de vivre - in a rookish way.

You don't believe me? Just checked in The Old Man's copy of "Crow Country" by Mark Cocker. And there the writer quotes his friend, the late Derek Goodwin, on the subject of rook operatics:

"Various soft, cawing, gurgling, rattling and crackling calls are uttered and the general effect is very much like that of a singing starling, only louder..."

Exackkerly.