Here's rooking at you
Country Life UK|February 28, 2024
Rooks may be fond of gathering in sociable eyries high in the treetops, but it would be unwise to take them for granted, cautions Mark Cocker, for they are one of the most complex and consistently misrepresented birds in this country
Here's rooking at you

IF you are lucky to live in a place overlooking fields where rooks visit, you will know one of the most endearing qualities possessed by this glorious member of the crow family. I can summarise it best by describing a recent vision when our Derbyshire home was assailed by a powerful winter torrent.

Suddenly, the horizon went black. The trees shuddered violently. The road in front was converted to an instant river and, across the far fields, it looked as if the whole landscape were shrouded in a grey sheet like electric static on a screen. Through binoculars, however, I could still see the rooks feeding, regardless of any downpour. On they plodded across the pasture, pausing to probe for worms, as if it were nothing more than a sunlit spring morning.

Rooks, you realise, are neighbours you can depend upon. The species is spread right through Britain, from Kent and Cornwall to northernmost Scotland. In fact, some of the world’s highest densities occur in Aberdeenshire. The birds nest alongside us above many village greens or in town centres, as they do here in Buxton. If not exactly a garden familiar—and they make routine exceptions for churchyards and vicarages—they have come to occupy our busiest urban spaces, including railway, and now even airport, forecourts.

Yet it would be unwise to take rooks for granted. They are also among the most complex, consistently misrepresented birds in this country. Take one of their most straightforward aspects. ‘Rook’ is one of the shortest official titles for any British bird and also one of the oldest, appearing in Old Norse (hr c) with versions of it in continuous use across Europe, possibly for thousands of years. Even that name trades on something we misjudge.

Esta historia es de la edición February 28, 2024 de Country Life UK.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición February 28, 2024 de Country Life UK.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE COUNTRY LIFE UKVer todo
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024