ON THE WILD SIDE Crow mix-up’s a rook ie error
DO you recognise the robin’s song? They start singing earlier in the year than many other species, so listen out for their tuneful calls in your local parks and woods.
The rook is a large black bird with a glossy blue sheen to his feathers.
He is smaller than the carrion crow, not that you’d know it from a distance, with a slightly longer and slimmer bill.
The main way to tell them apart is that adult rooks have a conspicuous white bald patch all the way around their beaks. In old English the word “crow” referred to both the carrion crow and rook, so many things attributed to the crow instead belong to the rook.
For example, the phrase “as the crow flies” refers to the flight of the rook as they travel in very straight lines.
You may think of crows as scavengers, picking on roadkill and fallen lambs, but the rook rarely does this.
Its Latin name roughly translates as “fruit raven”, and although you aren’t going to see them buried beak-deep in a peach any time soon, almost their entire diet comes from grain, cereals, worms and insects.
Although rooks are still shot to protect crops they eat a huge amount of pest bugs.
They will collect up stores of food and hide them for leaner times, much like squirrels. They are known to take part in unusual behaviours that display characteristic crow intelligence, such as dropping nuts on roads so cars going over can break the shells
IT’S that time again – for me to ramble on about my favourite family of birds, the much hated (and loved) crows. The crow I’d like to talk about today is a little bit of an oddball. He may seem like a standard black corvid, and is certainly as smart as one, but look a little closer and you will see he’s a very different beast. Let’s see how they measure up…
Just 19 days into the new year and we’re already seeing delays.
Several studio bosses’ first decision of 2020 was to put back some of the year’s biggest new releases.
Cyberpunk 2077, due in April, will now be released on for them.
They even recognise human faces – so don’t upset them as they’ll remember you.
My gran has always said “if it’s alone it’s a crow, if it’s in a group it’s a rook”, and there is some truth to that.
Rooks are very sociable and live in huge groups. In winter they will sometimes let jackdaws join them.
They start breeding in February in their communal rookeries, which are built from 10% hard work and 90% from stealing nesting material from each other. Traditionally, rooks nested in elm trees. But after Dutch elm disease killed many they now prefer oaks.
They come back to the same spot year after year, often with 40 or more birds in one rookery.
September 17. Marvel’s Avengers was set for May but will now launch on September 4. Final Fantasy 7 Remake was pushed back a month until April and Iron Man VR is delayed until May.
At least we’ve got longer to save up for them. customers got a surprising boost this week with news that they have partnered with Google Stadia for a broadband offer.
For those who don’t recall, Google Stadia – which launched late in 2019 – is the tech giant’s vision of a future free from consoles.
It will allow players to stream games to compatible devices such as Google’s Chromecast, phones or tablets. It could be a “Netflix of video games”, if you want to really simplify it. From this month (for a limited time) customers taking out BT’s Superfast Fibre 2, Ultrafast Fibre
100 or Ultrafast Fibre 250 packages will be able to claim a free Google Stadia Premiere Edition that’s worth £119.
The Google Stadia
Premiere
Edition includes a
Stadia controller, Chromecast Ultra, three months’ free access to a Stadia Pro subscription and Destiny
2: The Collection.
Not interested in the Premiere edition after over which vowel is the most important.
I won.
MR JONES via email
ME and the missus watched five movies back-to-back. Luckily for me, I was the one facing the telly.
DAFT BOZ via email
TEZ, via email three months? No problem, you’ll still be able to stream games up to 1080p and 60 FPS, but you’ll lose any “free” titles you had access to.
BT say that prices start from just £39.99 per month. If you’re looking to join the world of game streaming, now might be the perfect time.
For more info on the new plans, broadband speeds and full terms and conditions, head over to BT’s website.