Stone the crows... jackdaws fly in to steal the magpie’s territory
Freya, 12. “It was because of my kids that I got involved as they started doing clog dancing,” he said. “My daughters dance with Oakenhoof Folk Arts Organisation and it opened the door to me as well.
“I saw the Medal Morris Men and thought I would give it a go and went off to Horwich.”
His website developer wife Michelle, 42, is also a fan of the dance. She is a member of the Rivington Morris women’s team. “We are not quite the von Trapps but we are getting there,” said Mr Woodhead.
Morris dancing, which dates back to 1448, is a distinctive style involving groups of dancers performing choreographed stepping, usually wearing bell pads on their shins and wielding implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs.
Club secretary Mr Woodhead, a software developer, of Littleborough in TWO of the bad boys of the bird world are locked in a suburban turf war.
The icy-eyed jackdaw is stealing the thieving magpie’s claim to be our most lawless bird by muscling in on its rival’s inner city habitat.
Observers are witnessing a sharp rise in the number of jackdaws coming into built-up areas, driven by a 74 per cent rise in the national population over the past two decades. At the same time magpies are showing a marked decline.
The changing fortunes of the two members of the crow family is now likely to test the knowledge of ornithologists as observations by volunteers note increasing numbers of jackdaws in towns as magpies decline mirrors the findings of the Breeding Bird Survey.
Paul Stancliffe, of the British Trust for Ornithology, said: “Our scientists, backed by an army of volunteer observers, are continually undertaking studies of birds and the contrast between magpies and jackdaws would make fascinating future research.”