Rooklets
This is a very rooky area. Rooks are intensely social birds and it’s not uncommon to see a big tree with eight or ten rooks nests, next to another, next to another.
We had a very lively rookery here when we first moved in. They were noisy (next door hated them) but we loved our rooks. And then they went away.
No idea why. Maybe because the tree is partly dead? Do they have an instinct not to nest in dead trees? No idea. (Behold a scholarly discussion of rook nests in stag-headed trees).
One by one the nests vanished. Stolen to make other nests in the neighborhood, I guess, or just blown away. Only this one remained.
Sorry for terrible picture. It’s a phone snap from a long way away.
I sat in the garden in the sunshine today – first of the season – and was astonished to see a rook in this nest. See that forked thing sticking up? That’s her tail. I had no idea until the male landed nearby to feed her and she shifted. She’d been sitting immobile for so long, I thought that was an old piece of wood or something.
I can’t tell you how odd it is to have a lone rook nest in a tree.
Rooks lay end of March, beginning of April. Incubation period is 18 days. Today is April 19. Ladies and germs, I reckon we have rooklets.
April 19, 2023 — 5:42 pm
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