Here's rooking at you

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

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.