Rooks’ rations require true grit to digest

WE drove round a corner and the road was covered in rooks. They took to the air and the car was surrounded by large black birds. Miraculously they all managed to avoid us but the number of rook corpses you see on road verges shows that they aren’t always so lucky.

“Why do they do that?” my passenger asked. “Because they’ve no teeth” I answered which, judging from the look on my passenger’s face, was not an adequate response.

We still had some distance to go so, to pass the time, I started a short lecture on rook behaviour.