Fire hose solution to beat noisy rooks

A proposal by Bridge of Allan Town Council to curb the noise caused by a colony of rooks prompted debate in the columns of the Observer in early 1950.

Councillors wanted firefighters to turn their hoses on a troublesome rookery in an attempt to blow eggs and perhaps even fledglings - out of nests.

Stirlingshire Fire Brigade was to be paid £90, more than £3000 in today’s money, for the work.

However, the move appeared to divide readers with Mr John Smellie Martin, the Motherwell-based president of he Scottish Society for the Protection of Birds, writing to the paper to describe rooks as `amongst our best friends’.

Mr Martin gave examples from his own experiences of instances in which rooks had helped farmers produce bountiful crops.

`On one farm (in Lanarkshire) a field of winter wheat began to dwine (wither) and disappear about mid-March,’ he wrote. `The farmer rolled the field to break the clod, reharrowed and sowed oats.

`The field was immediately blackened with rooks. The farmer acknowledged that had he remained in the ignorance of his youth and believed the birds to be his enemies he may have driven them off. But he refrained and as a result, not only did he have an excellent crop of oats but the surviving wheat took new life in the absence of the grub pest that the prepared soil allowed the rooks to get at.’

And he added: `Will the community dumbly stand by and see these friendly and helpful birds treated in the manner proposed?’

Mr Martin’s view was backed by a former Bridge of Allan man Mr William Ramsay, Dunellan, Strathyre, who said the rookery had always been a delight to the town’s bird lovers.

He indicated that it was not the first time that hosing had been used to deal with rooks considered a nuisance.

`On the day after permission was granted two years ago to destroy rooks, I saw 30 to 40 brand new crates from a Norfolk poultry farm loaded with rook carcases and labelled for a Norfolk firm of fish processors - so someone had been ready to cash in on the slaughter of rooks,’ he added.

Mr Ramsay said `rook-hosing’ was mean and disgusting job to ask of firefighters whose role was to protect life.

Another correspondent was, however, less supportive of the birds. `Country Yokel’ said not so long ago skylarks could be seen on the Carse of Stirling.

`Now we are pleased to hear a solitary one heralding the approach of spring,’ the writer added. `Is it not the case that the reduction in lark life is largely due to the depredations of larger birds, especially rooks, jackdaws and starlings?’

`Country Yokel’ presumed that the action by the fire brigade was `intended to maintain a proper balance in bird life.’