Stormy Weather

[antongould]

Martin Handley has just given this a lengthy plug on Breakfast - didn't realise the size of it.........

[salymap]

I did the survey for years when I belonged to the RSPB. Yesterday, 2 rooks, or were they crows? Can never remember the difference between them.

Very few of the usual small birds this winter. No robins, bluetits, sparrows etc. Plenty of hedges for cover in my garden too.

[MrGongGong]

I did the survey for years when I belonged to the RSPB. Yesterday, 2 rooks, or were they crows? Can never remember the difference between them.

“If you see a crowd of rooks, they’re crows. If you see one crow, it’s a rook.”

[antongould]

no vultures in Sidcup? But John Ireland to come on the aforementioned Breakfast!

[Anna]

Very few of the usual small birds this winter. No robins, bluetits, sparrows etc. Plenty of hedges for cover in my garden too.

A lot of people in the S.E. say there is a dearth of sparrows, there are loads here. It really doesn't matter if you can't report a lot of birds as it helps the RSPB map which ones are in decline, and where

[amateur51]

A lot of people in the S.E. say there is a dearth of sparrows, there are loads here. It really doesn't matter if you can't report a lot of birds as it helps the RSPB map which ones are in decline, and where

Excellent stuff, Anna - it's really easy to do, and as you say, it's about helping RSPB to do its annual mapping exercise.

Sparrows are indeed in short supply in London BUT my total has gone up from 12 last year to 16 this year - mild winter plus my regular supply of food for them, I guess. They arrive as a crowd about 4/5 times a day and then bicker & squabble very noisily until all are fed & then they depart. I get a few tits (blue and great) and a robin plus the usual gang of pigeons. Not bad for a very small London garden a few metres away from the Metropolitan and Jubilee Lines as they thunder (shake, rattle and roll is nearer the mark) past

[Anna]

One year I recorded a woodpecker but it tends to be the usual: sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, woodpigeons, blue tits, robins, magpies, wrens. Occasionally crows if I throw some bread out. A friend who lives only 5 mins walk away gets loads of siskins, I've never had one of them

[Serial_Apologist]

This business of "is it a rook, or a crow?" is nonsense, with all due respects. Rooks are members of the Crow family - as are jays, carrion crows, jackdaws and magpies. And Choughs, if you live on the coast. But not starlings, surprisingly enough.

I'm not sure if my hour's worth of observation would count, since only one-third of the garden is visible from my window - and it's too cold to sit out there for a full hour!

[salymap]

I know rooks and crows come from the same'family' but one is much bigger with a different coloured beak, IIRC. I don't like either of them as they even beat the pigeons to any food I put out.Very cold here today and haven'tseen any birds, even on the nut cage.
Usually get Redwings and Fieldfares on the rotting apples under the big tree but nothing so far this year.

[Serial_Apologist]

I know rooks and crows come from the same'family' but one is much bigger with a different coloured beak, IIRC. I don't like either of them as they even beat the pigeons to any food I put out.Very cold here today and haven'tseen any birds, even on the nut cage.
Usually get Redwings and Fieldfares on the rotting apples under the big tree but nothing so far this year.

Saly - just checking in my Observer's Book of Birds, I now see that the rook appears to have a longer beak than the carrion crow; and it is pale in colour, assuming the pictures to be accurate, and has a bare whitish patch around the beak's base, whereas the carion crow beak is dark and shorter, with the upper part slightly bent downwards to a point. Also, the carrion crow is an inch longer than the rook, at 20 inches, and sleaker, more aerydynamic in outline. Carrion crows, rooks and jackdaws congregate in large numbers in the wooded eastern side of the local Crystal Palace Park; I must go and see how easy it is to distinguish them.

So, fancy, you sometimes get redwings visiting! I have never ever seen one - and a fieldfare only once.

[Anna]

Actually Rooks are ugly with their huge beaks, but try them in a pie, and they are tough! Best on a barbie with Piri Piri sauce!

[vinteuil]

o, I'm a great fan of rooks, crows, and all corvids. Not as foodstuffs, but as birds. They are well brainy - almost up there with chimpanzees - amazing given that their actual brain must be smaller than a walnut. And for me the croak of a rook is one of the most wonderfully melancholic sounds - when I've been abroad in distant places, the recorded sound of a rook can make me all homesick...

[Serial_Apologist]

o, I'm a great fan of rooks, crows, and all corvids. Not as foodstuffs, but as birds. They are well brainy - almost up there with chimpanzees - amazing given that their actual brain must be smaller than a walnut. And for me the croak of a rook is one of the most wonderfully melancholic sounds - when I've been abroad in distant places, the recorded sound of a rook can make me all homesick...

I don't know how well-known it is that some members of the crow family can be taught to speak. As a child my mum had a pet jackdaw which she taught a few words. Her mum had discovered him with a broken wing in their garden; they had taken him in and bound the wing up until it was able to fly again - which he did, going off to forage for food, but always returning, and banging on a window asking to be let in! Visiting friends would be surprised to be met by "Jack" at the door! From what I remember Mum saying, he just took off one day, and that was the last they saw of him.

[salymap]

If rooks and crows are so brainy, why do they pick up a bit of bread from the grass, and then bash it about in the bird bath. They leave the water like a sort of disgusting porridge, then fly off and leave the wet bread. I've seen them do it many times. Perhaps they don't like my Hovis wholemeal

[doversoul1]

I don't know how well-known it is that some members of the crow family can be taught to speak. As a child my mum had a pet jackdaw which she taught a few words. Her mum had discovered him with a broken wing in their garden; they had taken him in and bound the wing up until it was able to fly again - which he did, going off to forage for food, but always returning, and banging on a window asking to be let in! Visiting friends would be surprised to be met by "Jack" at the door! From what I remember Mum saying, he just took off one day, and that was the last they saw of him.

S-A
That’s the wonderful-est story I’ve heard for a long time.

Saly
Someone told me a long time ago that rooks hop and crows walk or the other way round.

Oh, where is ‘Reply to this thread’?
[ed] Ah, now I am logged in, I see it.