There is an extensive rookery near the village church. Rooks are highly sociable birds, nesting and roosting in a group.
They are also early-nesters, so from February, you can see them mending their nests ahead of the breeding season, flying home with absurdly large twigs to patch things up. You may have done something similarly ambitious when visiting B&Q.
Rooks are conversational creatures. Imagine the external processor in your workplace. Rooks are all that person. In your office, that person may say, ‘I’m off to get a coffee’, ‘I can’t work out how to do this,’ or, ‘My cat is the most wonderful creature on the planet’.
In the skies, rooks do something similar. Hearing them constantly cawing as I walk along the lane, I can only imagine the conversation.
‘I’m just off to get another twig.’
‘Well don’t get one like the last one. It was blackthorn and all spiky. I’ve told you before about them.’
‘Well, what is it that you want me to get then?’
‘There are some really nice beech twigs down there. How about you get some of them?’
‘Righty ho. I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Honestly Mavis, he’s useless. I have to tell him about every twig.’
‘I know love. Mine’s exactly the same, but what can you do?’
Perhaps that’s a little unkind, as rooks – like all corvids – are known to be exceptionally intelligent birds. They have good memories, burying (caching) some of their food, returning to collect it later. Think ‘click and collect’ for birds.
Having a good memory has its pros and cons, however. Rooks remember faces and can recall particular humans who posed a threat or did them harm.
If that person hoves into view, they will scold or mob them.
Not only that, they teach their offspring to recognise that person. The grudge, or warning, depending how you want to look at it, will be passed on through successive generations, and is known to last up to 17 years. Do not get on the wrong side of a rook.
I heard, anecdotally, of someone who lives near the rooks who had grown fed up of their summertime early-morning chatter. This person allegedly went out with an air pistol to express their discontent. One imagines that the rooks have clocked what that person looks like and will tell their offspring about them.
Forewarned, therefore, I try to stay on the right side of the rooks as I walk along the lane, and also, trained by experience, take a different route during breeding season, to avoid the droppings! Whichever way you look at it, the rooks add colour to village life.