How to grow your free seeds/ Bird Watch: the rook
Ruth has a soft spot for these communal, clever birds
YOU know spring is almost here when birds start flying past with nesting materials crammed in their beak. Not far from my house is a tree-lined walk into town, and it is here that the art of nest-building takes on a whole new dimension.
The trees are the perennial home to a large rookery – colony of rooks – and at this time of year the air is thick with their guttural cawing cries and the ground littered with a carpet of dropped twigs.
Nest-building is a serious business for rooks, as they are one of the earliest breeding birds and are probably already on their first brood. Their homes are large, untidy platforms of twigs lined with soft materials and some may be returned to and renovated year after year. Rooks are members of the crow family and can be distinguished from their cousins the carrion crow and raven by their pale beaks and faces (the other two are all black) and the baggy pantaloons of feathers down their legs.
They are gregarious birds, nesting and feeding in flocks. Rooks are omnivorous and will eat everything from worms and insects to food waste, carrion and even go as far as to steal fledglings and eggs from other birds’ nests.
As with all members of the Corvid crew, they come heavy with myths and legends, and their collective noun is a ‘parliament’. Whether they would be doing a better job than the current bunch in Westminster, well, I couldn’t possibly comment...