Rows and relations in the rookery

A READER who regularly emails me with news updates about his local wildlife tells me that a nearby rookery has become very noisy lately.

I’m not surprised. Rooks tend to spend most of the winter roaming around the countryside in search of food, often in the company of jackdaws and increasingly adding urban areas to their itinerary. But, like other members of the crow family, they breed early in the year, so some time in January they return to the rookery.

Rooks use the same nest year after year, which is quite unusual among birds. But the nests get damaged by winter storms and have to be repaired. The basic structure is woven out of twigs and the birds nearly always break the twigs off a growing tree with their powerful beaks, very seldom picking up ones that have fallen to the ground. Rook colonies are, in general, extremely civilised places and the birds show a high degree of community spirit. But this does tend to break down a bit at this time of year because when birds fly off to prospect for the right twig to repair that damaged side of the nest, other birds will steal twigs from it while it’s unattended.