Noisy Neighbours

Apart from the Rookery at the top of our garden we have quiet neighbours. But Rooks do make rather noisy neighbours. There is a small copse at the top of our rear garden. It contains a fair sized Rookery. It increases in numbers yearly. I've lived with Rooks for nearly 27 years - from Gloucestershire to Devon. I rarely notice their chatter. Visitors find them noisy and distracting. Especially when we are having a garden tea party. I love having them around. They are far less of a distraction than a passing plane or an air sea rescue helicopter clattering overhead. I'm glad to say there are not as many as was shown recently on a BBC television programme.

I can see the rookery from my kitchen window so am aware of thier daily goings on. I don't know what it is but something makes them suddenly swirl up in the air with a clamour of calls, wheel about for a while then settle back on the perches. I usually notice the movement first then I hear the sound. On reading this article I see it may predict weather patterns; I'll have to try and see if it does fit with this observation during this year.

The raucous calls, the arguments, disputes and gossiping chatter. No wonder the collective nouns for rooks are Parliament, Building or Clamour. The make fascinating neighbours. Always industrious they are invariably repairing or rebuilding their nests. Sometimes their chatter continues intermittently throughout the night. Less so in the cold depths of midwinter nights.

Now behind the copse of trees at the top of our garden there are many arable fields. These fields are always full of feeding rooks during the day. But not from 'our' rookery. No our rooks fly off each morning in a north easterly direction. They cross paths with rooks flying in from a north westerly direction to feed in the fields behind us. Rooks commute. Single rooks also have an odd way of flying. As we live almost at the top of a hill we get to see many individual birds flying towards us at eye level. Rooks have a strange sideways flight. They rarely seem to fly from A to B in a direct manner. They seem to flap their wings, looking left and right as they fly and travel at a drifting angle. It's very hard to predict exactly where they intend to go. In spring when they are carrying large twigs back to the nest they often drop them just short and our garden rapidly becomes littered with very large twigs.