Rooks are fascinating birds

IT WAS dusk, a blustery November evening, and I was watching rooks, writes Dick Warner

The strong wind was hitting a dense hedgerow which must have deflected it upwards. A flock of rooks was playing in the up-draft. One by one the birds swooped in, were flung skywards and performed intricate aerial manoeuvres, loops and rolls and stalls, before levelling out and joining the queue to do the whole thing again.

Some people might say that describing this as ‘play’ is to commit the sin of anthropomorphism. They would claim that a mere bird is incapable of something as sophisticated as playing. I don’t agree. I watched that flock carefully and I could deduce no practical reason for what they were doing. Some observers might claim that they were honing their flying skills to help them escape from peregrine falcons, but I don’t think this is what it was about. It was just for fun.