But why this is so who can tell? If the Barn Owl shows himself by day, Rooks and Starlings, Blackbirds, both species of Thrush, Chaffinches, Tits and Wrens will mob him; and he flies awkwardly from tree to tree, with dazed eyes and apparently “mazed,” as the country folks says, altogether, till he can find a hole in a tree where he can hide himself. He may well like hollows in trees—for, as the poet says, “the Owl, with all his feathers, is a-cold.” This is not hard to understand, for the breast feathers are so light and fluffy that the wind easily parts them, laying bare the shivering skin.
His frequent choice of an old dovecote as a home was misunderstood. The ignorant countryman thought it was in order to prey on the young pigeons that he selected a corner there, whereas—and Waterton was the first to record the bird’s reason, after watching the doings of a pair of Barn Owls in his dovecote—the Owls were there to prey on the pigeons’ enemies, and Owls and Pigeons lived amicably together in the same home.
Lord Cathcart, in a paper contributed to the Royal Agricultural Society, said: “Our ancestors, wiser than we, always made in their great barns ingress for Owls—an owl-hole, with often a stone perch.” And the Rev. F. O. Morris tells of a pair of this species which lived in a barn near Norwich, and were so fearless that they would stay there whilst the men were threshing; they waited on the flails as rooks do on the plough, and if a mouse were dislodged by the removal of a sheaf they would pounce upon it without minding the men’s presence. They hunt mice amongst the stacks, too, in the farmyard, staying there all night often, if mice abound. As E. Newman says, “The farmer pays the price of a sack of grain for every Owl nailed to his barn door, because that Owl would have destroyed mice every night, and these mice, being relieved of their oppressive enemy, would, in a very short time, consume a sack of wheat, peas, or beans.”
Owing to its very deep plumage, the Barn Owl looks larger than it is. Its eye is dark-coloured, almost black: its glance is directed forwards. The facial disk is very prominent; at rest, it is heart-shaped, and it is edged with white and rust-colour. The bill is yellowish in colour, and is slightly hooked. The legs are scantily feathered, and the toes almost bare: the claw of the middle toe is serrated along its inner edge. The body-plumage is soft as silk, and yielding, and thickly pearled with white and dark markings on the beautiful ash-grey back. The flanks are pale with a reddish tinge, in places very bright, and sprinkled with tiny pearl-like spots of light and dark colour.
The Wood Owl, known also as the Brown or Tawny Owl, has the admirable trait of constancy, for it is said he mates for life and the pair return year after year to the same tree to nest. In the month of September you will hear him hooting in the woods more than at any other time of the year. He is not so constant in his choice of locality, but like many other birds he and his kind will disappear from a district without any apparent reason, to return to it again after a time. No doubt they follow their food supply; the small creatures they feed on—mice, rats, shrews, and squirrels—all disappear in the same fashion to re-appear elsewhere; the movements of these being no doubt ruled by the same conditions of suitable food, its scarcity or its plenty.
In spite of persecution the Tawny Owl is still fairly common in our own country wherever there are woods or crags suitable for its habitat. In the South of Scotland it is common, as well as in England and Wales. It is strange that it seems to be absent from Ireland. Here, in Ealing, where the present writer lives, its whoo-hoo, or, as Shakespeare has it, tu-whit and to-who, are heard regularly in one little spinney at the south-east corner of our suburb; and last summer—1908—a pair took up their abode in a garden, right in amongst the shady roads not very far from the Broadway.
The Tawny Owl breeds early; strong-flying young ones may be seen in April. A hollow oak tree or an elm is a favorite nesting site with it. The young are
very easy to rear and to tame. The late Lord Lilford, who was perhaps our best authority on owls, stated that he had examined many pellets of the Tawny Owl, and although he more than once found the remains of young rabbits he could not accuse the bird of any serious poaching.
Living more in the woods the Brown Owl is less often observed than is the White Owl; also its plumage is darker, and this makes it often less visible, especially in the shade of the trees. When flying, his legs are stretched out behind, “as a balance to his heavy head,” White of Selborne remarked. The young ones, funny little balls of grey down, resemble, some one has said, “a pair of Shetland worsted stockings rolled up, such as might have belonged to Tam o’ Shanter.”
And this reminds us of Burns, who, when he bids the birds mourn for him, “Wha lies in clay, Wham we deplore,” sings:
But Shakespeare said of the Wood-Owl:
It was in 210 pellets of this species that Dr. Altum found the remains of 6 rats, 42 mice, 296 voles, 33 shrews, 48 moles, 18 birds, and 48 beetles, besides countless numbers of cockchafers.
Brown Owls make very amusing pets and they are not hard to tame. They are less suspicious than other owls and become very companionable. R. Bosworth Smith, whose recent death was so much lamented by all bird-lovers, and who said: “Birds have been to me the solace, the recreation and the passion of a life-time,” told of one young brown owl which he brought up from the nest, which was very fond of music. It would make its way, through an open window on the ground floor, into the room in which a piano was being played and would even press closely against the case of the instrument. Dr. J. Cooper, Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Rutger’s College, New Brunswick, also told the same author that one morning in November of 1899 he found, on going to his lecture room, that a brown owl had somehow made its way into it, and had selected as a perch a huge framed photograph of Athens. It was, he remarks, an unlooked for illustration to both teacher and taught, of the proverbial expression “Owls to Athens.” And there she was, just over the Areopagus, the High Court of Athens, and she sat perched there four whole hours, that “bird of wisdom,” whilst the Professor gave as many lectures to successive classes of his pupils, quite undisturbed by the noise they made, coming and going. Before she disappeared, one of the lecturer’s brother-Professors had time to take a photograph of “the Bird of Pallas on her chosen throne.”
Description: In the adult male the upper parts are of variable shades of ash-grey, mottled with brown; there are large white spots on the outer webs of the wing-coverts; the tail is barred with brown and tipped with white; the under-parts are a buffish-white, mottled with pale and streaked with dark brown. The disk about the face is greyish, having a dark brown border; the legs are feathered to the claws. The length of the bird is about 16 inches. The female is larger than the male and its plumage is a more rufous brown; but there are two varieties in this species, a red and a grey, the colour being independent of sex; the rufous form is more common in Great Britain. After the first greyish down of the nestlings they put on a more reddish brown than the adult birds have.
In the wooded districts of Great Britain this handsome Owl is always to be found; the numbers bred here are augmented also by a considerable number which come to us in autumn from the Continent. It is a larger bird than the Short-eared species and it lives much in the same way as the Brown Owl. These two are not so fastidious in their way of feeding as the White Owl. It lives on small birds, rodents, bats, fish, reptiles and large insects. Some have accused it of taking birds up to the size of a Plover, but the late Lord Lilford stated that he had never heard any complaint of its destruction of game in those districts where it was comparatively common; the castings of this species which he examined were mainly composed of the remains of greenfinches, sparrows and field mice. It is often seen flying about by daylight and it has been known to pick up and carry off wounded birds. It is said to be much disliked by other birds—possibly the last mentioned habit may be at the bottom of this strong feeling on their part, also its appropriation of other birds’ nests. The note of the hungry young birds of this species is a loud mewing.
The prophet Isaiah had not very pleasant associations with Owls, it would seem. When speaking of desolated places, he says, “Owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there ... the screech owl also shall rest there ... the great owl make her nest....”
Alluding to the death of Julius Cæsar—or rather to the omens that preceded it—Shakespeare wrote:
Of crook-backed Richard of Gloucester, too, he says:
Different parts of the White Owl’s body were supposed to possess different magical powers, and they have been used by many a rural imposter to breed awe in the credulous.
Happily all this is changed now excepting amongst a small ignorant minority. Of late years women who affected the fashion of wearing owls heads and wings on toques seemed likely to become the poor Owls’ worst enemy. Mr. Ward Fowler saw, not long ago, in a public house, this advertisement: “Wanted at once by a London firm, 1,000 owls.”
The late R. Bosworth Smith wrote: “The number of owls has been terribly diminished. Let them be encouraged and protected in every possible way. Let the gamekeeper be rewarded, as I have rewarded him myself, not for the owls he destroys, but for the owls he preserves.... Let the owl be regarded and protected in England as the stork is regarded and protected in Holland!”
The Long-eared Owl is 15 inches in length. The upper parts are a warm buff, mottled and pearled with brown and grey and streaked with dark brown, bill black, dark markings about the eyes, facial disk buff with greyish black margin and outer rim. The long erectile tufts are streaked with dark brown. The eyes are a rich yellow. Under parts warm buff and grey with broad blackish streaks and small transverse bars. Legs covered to the toes with fawn coloured feathers. The eggs, four to six in number, are laid with us in an old squirrel’s drey or on the old nest of a Ringdove, a Magpie, Rook, Crow, or Heron’s nest; in Hungary often in that of a Buzzard or a Kite, with a few slight sticks and rabbits’ fur added. They are white, the surface smooth but not glossy. As a rule this species does not hoot like the Tawny Owl, but is rather silent.
In Hungary Short-eared Owls appear in numbers with the Buzzards where field mice get the upper hand, and work with these grander birds. A peculiarity of the species is to crouch down to the earth like a hen when in danger. So confiding in nature is it that it falls an easy prey to the guns of those whom we call the “Sunday sportsmen,” to the great loss of the agriculturist. Large numbers of the Short-eared Owl arrive regularly in Great Britain from the Continent, to remain with us during the winter. This species is often termed the Woodcock Owl here, partly on account of its twisting flight it is supposed, and also because both birds make their appearance about the same time—some years in larger, some years in lesser numbers. A few pairs still breed in the eastern counties, but it nests more often in the north, in widely scattered parts of our moorland districts. In Scotland the species is common; but in Ireland it has not yet been recorded as breeding, although it is very common there in winter. I remember a relative telling me of a Short-eared Owl hovering much over a terrier he had out walking with him, one evening late, on Congleton Edge. Probably the bird had its young on some tuft of heather near them and was anxious as to the safety of these, and it would not have hesitated to attack the terrier had it been alone.
Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, in Lyddeker’s “R. Natural History,” says: “It is a curious circumstance that, although the number of eggs laid by this bird (the Short-eared Owl) is generally four, yet, when food is unusually abundant, as during a lemming-migration, the number in a clutch will rise to seven or eight, and during the recent vole plague in Scotland larger numbers were recorded, reaching as many as thirteen.”
As many as ten and twelve eggs were often found on some hill farms where these Owls remained feeding all the winter and commenced nesting in March, the birds in many cases nearing a second brood.
Mr. Colles, of Higher Broughton, Manchester, speaking of the Short-eared Owl, said in a letter to his friend (R. Bosworth Smith): “You will remember that a few years ago certain parts of the country (Scotland) were infested with voles to such an extent that the sheep would not eat grass over thousands of acres of moorland. It was some two years after they had been at their worst that my son and I were fishing in St. Mary’s Loch; and one day, about noon, while I was crouching down between the high banks of the Meggett, to keep out of sight of the fish, a Short-eared Owl skimmed over the top of the bank directly to the place where I was; and I can assure you that no exaggerated comic picture of an Owl I had ever seen affected me as did this one. Its eyes looked to me as large as saucers, and the bird seemed a perfect ogre. A few days later we were fishing one of the tributaries of the Tweed near its source, and had to walk a mile or so, on almost flat moorland, where there was hardly a bush, much less a tree, to be seen. Wherever there was rise enough in the ground to form a little bank the soil was perfectly honeycombed with what appeared miniature colonnades or rather cloisters, and we caught frequent glimpses of the voles within, as they flitted along their galleries. When we were well into this dreary place a couple of Short-eared Owls positively mobbed us, and as we walked along, with our fishing-rods over our shoulders they followed us till we reached a dry gully, where they became even more demonstrative, coming well within point of our rods. On both occasions the hour was between eleven and twelve o’clock and the sun was shining brilliantly.”
The Short-eared Owl is fierce and bold in defence of her young. She will attack larger animals than herself. In the Hawaiian Islands she has always been much admired because of her fine qualities, and was indeed one of the old tutelary deities of the natives.
This Owl is from 14 to 15 inches in length. The ear-feathers are short, the irides yellow, bill black, black about the eyes, and the facial disk is browner than in the last-named species; the plumage of the upper parts is more blotched than streaked; the buff tint is more decided. The ear-tufts, though erectile, are short, and not seen except when the bird is excited. Under-parts streaked lengthwise with blackish-brown, but have no transverse bars. The young are browner and darker and more boldly marked, and tawny on the under parts, iris paler than in the adult.
The Little Owl makes its nest where it has its ordinary dwelling-place; that is to say, in hollows, behind beams, sometimes even under bridges. The clutch of eggs is four to five, and they are almost perfectly round. The young are covered with white down.
This is a friendly little species; it likes to get under the house-roof, into barns and towers; retires also into the hollow of a tree and clefts in old masonry. A capital mouse-hunter, it feeds also largely on insects, and haunts the lawns to get out the earthworms. In winter it catches birds at roost, getting numbers of Thrushes, also mice and other small mammals. When the chase is prolonged till daylight the small birds mob the Little Owl, surrounding him in numbers. They dare not meddle with him because of his sharp claws, but they scold and chatter at him as a shameless thief. Bird-catchers profit by this, and they fasten him to a bough to act as a lure. There is in Hungary a superstition that no one dies where this Little Owl appears and utters his cry of Kooweek, kooweek! which comes down from the gables or the attic windows of the house.
The numbers of the Little Owl have been increasing in England of late. Mr. Meade-Waldo informed me that in the neighbourhood of Penshurst, near his own home, in Kent, he had seen as many as sixteen Little Owls perched on the telegraph wires on the line between two stations. This gentleman has always been known to be a lover and a protector of this species.
In Leadenhall Market there are often cages full of them which have been brought over from Holland. They make delightful house pets and good mousers indoors. “I have one of my own,” says A Son of the Marshes, “and I set him down as a bird of priceless value, for he has the power to make me laugh when I should be least in the mood for it.... Jan Steen and Teniers introduced him into their pictures. In that of ‘The Jealous Wife,’ for instance, there is the Little Owl perched on the window shutter contemplating an aged man holding sweet converse with a young woman, presumably his niece. The old woman, his wife, has also her head in the opening, taking in the scene wrathfully. My own bird is at liberty. This he uses to the best of his ability, making the third member of our small household.”
The Little Owl is about eight inches long, but seems bigger than it is because of its large head and soft plumage: its body is compressed in form. Bill and iris are yellow, legs clad with hair-like feathers, toes almost bare. The short tail is hardly visible beneath the points of the wings. The back is greyish-brown, spotted with white; the belly whitish, with long brown markings.
The Rook lives in flocks and breeds in great colonies. Its nest is smaller and looser than that of the Hooded Crow. Five or six nests one above another, are often found in one tree—sometimes as many as eighteen. It pairs somewhat late, in Hungary, but already in April may be found three to five eggs of a pale green colour spotted with grey and blue. These are smaller than those of the Hooded Crow.
The Rook spends the greater part of its life in its native home, often in huge crowds, numbering many thousands, which divide up during the day to seek food in different parts of the neighbourhood. During the breeding time they are divided according to the breeding places. This bird is the most zealous follower of the ploughman, and by its great number destroys an enormous quantity of noxious creatures—the cockchafer being its most coveted delicacy. It covers, with its flocks, the freshly ploughed field, and if they are sown, picks up the grains that are lying about. It bores into the soft earth of the meadows and cornfields, for destructive grubs, and pulls up the withered plants in order to secure the caterpillar or wireworm which has destroyed the roots. This has caused the Rook to be suspected of plundering the fields, but the question has not yet been settled, and the general inclination is in the bird’s favour. The fact is that even in Hungary, where the Rook exists in millions, the people generally are indifferent about it. Early sowing, while there is
sufficient insect food for the birds, is the best protection from its mischief, and this is good for the services it performs.
A knowledge of the habits of the Rook is important, because the bird is closely associated with husbandry, and with its well organised work deeply affects the interests of the husbandman. While the Hooded Crow roams about the district with the Jackdaw, thousands of Rooks cover the corn-fields; they settle also on fallow ground, on the freshly ploughed field, on the sprouting crops, and on the turnip-field. It is this appearance in vast numbers which mainly distinguishes the Rook from the Hooded Crow, which otherwise its habits closely resemble.
In regard to this bird also, different views are held. Whilst the scientific agriculturist considers it useful, the old-fashioned husbandman is convinced that it is harmful. Here again, therefore, must a just verdict be given, between two opposing parties—but this verdict must be impartial. Various things are said of the Rook—but it is not true that it picks the seed out of the earth, so that the spoiled seed has to be ploughed in again. It only takes the seed which has been imperfectly covered by the harrow,—and the reploughing is only an empty complaint, for no one ever heard tell of a particular village, or farm, where reploughing had to be performed on account of the Rooks. The farmer who keeps his eyes open before he gives an opinion knows that the Rook digs his beak into the ground because he hopes to find worms there. Sometimes it is shot, in order to be set up as a scarecrow, but they say nothing of what may be found in its crop, should it be opened; this, however, is just what is necessary in order to ascertain the truth—although the other conditions of its life must also be taken into account.
It is easy to observe the behaviour of Rooks, because they always move and act in flocks. These flocks are dissolved only in cold snowy winters, when the birds, tired of the cold and lack of food, come into the villages. When the early spring ploughing begins, part of them follow the plough; the flock spreads itself over the freshly ploughed land and they snap up the grubs of the destructive insects which escape from the newly-turned clods. This then is useful work. They also settle on the sown land and pick up the seeds which the harrow has left on the surface, but at the same time devour the insects which the harrow has turned up. There is no harm in this. In a short time the full spring has come and the immature insects have developed into other forms—then the Rook begins to think of building its nest. Its young are not fed on seeds, for at that time there are none to be had, but exclusively on insects—which again is a great and useful work. Then the flock spreads over the neighbourhood, leaving their sleeping-place in the morning in a body, and betaking themselves to different parts of the district; and it may be remembered that separate flocks repeatedly visit the same spot, and work there; as, for instance, one point in a great stretch of cornland, where in the track of the birds lie many uprooted plants, which the farmer generally looks upon as due to the mischief of the Rooks. When insect life has become stronger, they settle on the meadows, where they eagerly hunt for crickets and grasshoppers; then they return to the ploughed fields and destroy the insects that have been disturbed—and this is useful work. It is true that later on they visit any heaps of cut corn that may lie in their way, and in this way do harm, but the greater number of the flock pick up the fallen grains in the stubble field, and a few follow the carts which carry the corn, and pick up any that is dropped. There is no harm in this, as these ears would in any case be lost to the farmer. At the time of the hay harvest they settle on the ridges of cut grass and hunt for crickets and grasshoppers, for these creatures have then no cover, and easily fall a prey to the birds. The Rook also attacks the young maize and fruit, but it has not skill in this respect and cannot do much harm. The harm done is outweighed a thousandfold by the good which it does in the destruction of insects. The black army of birds lights also upon the turnip crops just at the time when these valuable plants are covered with masses of the “turnip caterpillar.” By the destruction of this pest they do the farmer invaluable service.
This sanitary work continues into the late autumn as long as the caterpillars, the Rook’s favourite food, remain. The Rook may do serious damage during the autumn sowing, especially if it is thin, and sown and harrowed so late that the caterpillars have disappeared, not so much, however, that the field must be ploughed up; at the worst there would remain only one or two unproductive spots, and we know that corn grows in tufts, and if it is not thinned by the Rooks it must be done by the farmer, so that the corn is not choked by its own abundance.
When the hard part of winter comes, the flocks of Rooks seek towns and villages, where they spend the nights on the roofs of houses in order to shelter themselves from the icy wind; during the day they steal from the barns and granaries, or, if the opportunity offers, they get at the bundles of straw which they pull about to try and find a stray ear of corn.
This much is certain that the principal food of the Rook consists of insects and grubs, which it gets not only from the surface of the earth, but also from beneath it, when the bird sees from the colour of the fading plant that a grub is gnawing at its root. This is the meaning of the uprooted plants; and why one flock after another so often visits the same cornfields. It is a sure sign that the wireworm or some similar pest is busy with its depredations. Here again the work of the Rook is a blessing.
There are neighbourhoods where the farmer makes a great fuss about a grain or two of wheat or maize, as if he must be ruined by the damage. I repeat that the bird has earned its few grains by its other work; indeed, without its useful services these grains would probably never have grown.
The lesson we learn then is as follows:—The Rook lives principally and preferably on insects, grubs and worms, and so long as these are procurable, it does not look for grain—therefore, the spring sowing should be performed as late as possible, when the insects have developed, and the Rook can find its natural food; in autumn the sowing should be done as early as possible while there are still some insects to be found. The further actions of this bird are protective, for it attacks the gnawing maggots that live in the ground. These facts can be verified by dissection of the bird, when the stomach is often found to be full of wire-worms.
None the less researches into the habits of the rook require to be more thoroughly worked out, and this must not be lost sight of.
. . . . . . . . . . .
I asked a tenant farmer in our own Midlands his views on the subject of Rooks and the following, with some slight editing of my own, was what he sent me. I give it in full as although there may be some repetition of the foregoing statements, it has special interest as coming from one of our English farmers.
A recent writer from the sportsman’s point of view speaks of the Rook as “this black robber,” and he says that there is no practical difference of opinion as to the question whether his benefits outweigh his depredations. Now, as a farmer, I confidently affirm that he does much more good than harm. He will sometimes uproot vegetables in getting at the worms round their roots. It is true also that he often robs the nests of the pheasant and the partridge; but, as I could easily show, he does far more good to the general community by furthering the labours of agriculturists, on whom so much depends, than harm to the sport of our leisured classes.
A more social bird even than the gregarious starling, he flies in flocks, feeds in flocks, and builds in flocks. His everyday life may appear to be an uneventful one to the outside world, and most commonplace; yet it is full of adventure and of joy tempered with sorrows. Apparently a grave bird, he is brimful of humour and, at times, as full of play as a titmouse. Like all other links in the seemingly endless chain of nature, he is the victim of circumstances: without much ado he could count up his sincere friends, but his enemies are beyond his conception of numbers.
From his winter homing quarters he comes with his company during February to inspect the colony of breeding nests which he regards as his peculiar domain, going back as night approaches to his sleeping-place until all is ready for the family life to begin. Rookeries vary, of course, greatly in size; one may be as a city or large town, again there will be a village, and here and there a small hamlet. There are in my own fields one of about a hundred and thirty nests, one of sixty, one of eight, and another of four nests. Of these latter I have some views of my own. I believe them to be those of odd and outlawed individuals who follow the other companies hither, but are socially considered as pariahs. My nearest neighbours are those of the sixty-two-nest village, and my last census-taking records about sixty-two married couples and thirty-six or more odd or unmated birds. These are all, of course, adult birds, their numbers reckoned before the young were hatched out.
The odd birds may some of them be outlaws, as I said before, but the majority of them are not vagabonds by any means. They only happen to belong to that numerous enough class amongst humans—those who have been forced by some just cause or impediment into a life of celibacy. As the rook does not mate until it is nearly two years old, a number of the single birds are, therefore, simply lusty young bachelors. The few individuals whom I sum up as ne’er-do-weels or unfortunates—I know personally three of these at the present moment—are to be recognised by the shabby, neglected, and generally unkempt appearance of their plumage, and some other of the many outward signs of a past henpecked existence. I am ignorant of the life history of these; perhaps if we knew all about them we should look upon them as objects of pity rather than of reproach. Now and again I notice that a few old birds in our colony appear to be dissatisfied with everybody and everything; and imaginary grievances, political and social, often lead to a segregation scheme. This is how I have accounted for my hamlet of four nests. The general run of our odd, or celibate, birds is, however, good in character; they help in the building of the nests and even in feeding the sitting birds. For the wedded pairs April is a most trying time: if the season be a dry one, or frost sets in, food is scarce. Insects and worms are deep in the earth; the farmer is engaged in sowing his spring corn, oats, and barley. The rooks prefer a diet of insects, worms and grubs, but these are hard to get at times; the spring beans are just peeping through, and the sitting hen asks for food. The cock bird ventures too long in the beanfield, and as he skims over the hedge with a bean or two in his pouch a shot is heard; the faithful mate of the sitting bird is brought down to mother earth, and the farmer feels that he has one enemy the less. Personally I would not shoot a bird if you gave me a sovereign for it. The old bird may, and does, grieve, but the news of her loss is soon at the rookery, and her food is brought to her by a new mate. Thus there is a place taken in the rookery by one of our odd birds, and there is a bachelor less in the community. I have known many a bird die about this time through over-zeal—a slave to love and duty. If April prove seasonable and mild with showers, worms are plentiful, and the farmer’s gun remains in its place over the kitchen chimneypiece.
Often during the building season the rookery is disturbed by discordant notes, accompanied by a great fluttering of wings; there is a big row in the township; not a duel over a “squaw”: the rook is a philosopher, and the ritual of love-making and matrimony are of the simplest. The bother will be over divergent interests or a disputed claim, for there is a recognised right of property—not ground-rent to pay, but a specified limit for nest-room has been accorded. The trouble occurs mostly with young birds wishing to place their nests too near to an old nest. A parish council is called, with the result that the disputants’ nests are soon scattered to the winds, and the claimant and the defendant may both have to begin a new foundation. Sometimes there is a disturbance on a more limited scale: one between very near neighbours or blood-relations—a family jar, in fact. One pair of birds do their very best to pull the sticks from the nest of another pair: each of the contending parties will do all they can to prevent the other from building.
As to the nests, we all know how busily the rooks set to work to repair these after a gale of wind has wrought some havoc in their colonies; but I do not think it is equally well known that they are curiously weather-wise, and they scent the coming storm and set to work to repair and strengthen before the imminent gale has been evident to the farmer. I have noticed that fact; the Rook’s powers of sight and hearing are remarkable.
At the end of the breeding-season comes the farmers’ rook-shooting, which I, for one, never take part in: I have too much regard for the labours of both the adult and the young birds. About the roots of each of the turnip-plants there may gather scores of wireworms, which eat the turnips; in the crops of young birds which have been shot are found myriads of these wireworms, or it may be that they are filled with grubs of various sorts, the larvæ of cockchafers, etc. In fact, in my opinion—that of a tenant farmer who is forced to make things pay—all the Rook’s acts of depredation ought to be forgotten if we carefully consider the great services he renders to the agriculturist. Beetles, tipula (Daddy Longlegs grubs), warble grubs, oak-leaf roller caterpillars, and the caterpillars of the diamond-backed moth he devours. The game-preserver may grudge the birds their plundering of his nests, but the farmer is in gratitude bound to spare them. A lot of young birds at the rook-shooting time are still unable to take a flight of any distance, but others are, happily for themselves, able to fly well. I am persuaded that the old parent birds often—foreseeing a shooting raid—get these out of the way, and so they secure life for a number of their young who might have been sacrificed. They betake themselves in parties to their rootings about the elms upon outlying pastures. Daily they grow stronger on the wing, and learn the ways and means of living.
Like all long-lived creatures, the Rook is temperate in eating, and he is capable of going a long time without food—a faculty which stands him in good stead during hard winters. In a long frost or a prolonged drought he is a most determined robber, and when he is on what he knows to be forbidden ground, he posts a sentinel to give warning of the approaching farmer or watcher. He is known to take the eggs of such favourite birds as the thrush and the blackbird, whose nests are open, and therefore soon discovered and plundered. But this is no doubt where his proper food is scarce; and if man had not been so eager in the destruction of some of our birds of prey, who are the natural enemies of him and his, Rooks would be less plentiful in some districts. Still, I for one have no desire to see their numbers decrease, so certain am I of their value; and I believe this bird will become even more valuable as time goes on.
The Rook is somewhat smaller than the Hooded Crow; the beak more slender, rather straighter; the base of it in mature age bare, and covered with a kind of white scurf. The entire bird is black with a steely-blue and purple gloss. The feet black and thick, the claws strong, the sole rough; it walks better than the Hooded Crow. The beak of the young bird is not bare, the nostrils being covered with bristly feathers. The bareness first appears when the bird begins to dig in the ground for its food.
The Hooded Crow walks well, with head erect, moving its tail right and left as it goes. Its flight is easy, using comparatively little movement of the wings. This Crow usually makes its nest in the tops of high trees, preferably in one standing alone in a field; but sometimes on rocks. It does not build in colonies but usually settles alone, though occasionally two or three pairs will build on the edge of a wood or in a small plantation. The nest consists of twigs, roots, and grass; the hollow of the nest being safely lined; in the spring it contains four to six eggs of a light green colour speckled with grey and brown marks.
In mild seasons this bird has been known to pair, as early as the end of February, but the usual time is March. Then the construction and arrangements of the nest begins. The female bird, only, sits on the eggs; the male guards the nest and provides the food. When near the nest, he is a courageous, even daring bird, able to keep off such enemies as the Hawk or the Eagle. His cry is “kár, kár.”
The Hooded Crow is a clever intelligent bird. It easily adapts itself to circumstances; the wave-lashed rock, or the icy peak, are as acceptable to it as green meadows, or the palms and sycamores of Egypt; the woods, as welcome as the heart of the snug village, as the tiny garden round a peasant’s hut. It is omnivorous; so long as it can find food in forest or field, on the sea shore or river bank, it avoids the proximity of man; but when winter comes, it settles near inhabited districts and
highroads, in order to seize upon anything eatable, however bad its condition.
And now let us investigate its actions, which divide men into two camps, one of which states that the Hooded Crow is harmful, the other that it is serviceable. First, as to the harm. It is true that this bird considers a young chicken a great delicacy, and so, takes one when it has a chance. But this happens very rarely, for the good mother-hen flies at the marauder, and raises a cry that brings out the people of the house to see what is the matter, and the Crow has to beat a retreat, without having secured its prey—or run the risk of having a wing broken by a stone, a rolling-pin, or other missile. Should it succeed in securing a chicken, then indeed it has done harm, but this happens so rarely, that the housekeeper does not make much account of it. It is also true that it attacks the timid little hares in the fields, and if the mother is absent, the young ones are quickly destroyed, and torn to pieces by two or three blows of the strong beak. In this case it is the sportsman who is most annoyed, for the farmer is no friend of the hare, which does great harm in the winter by gnawing the fruit trees. It is a known fact also that the Crow robs the nests of birds which are built on the ground in the fields, when it finds them. This also is harm, but the little birds exhibit wonderful instinct in hiding their nests, so that even the sharp-eyed Crow can rarely find one, especially when we consider that its attention is constantly being diverted from the search by a fat cricket or grasshopper, or a mouse slipping hurriedly by. Neither can it be denied that when the ears of maize are young and soft the Crows opens the husk with its beak and regales itself with the milky juice. This is indeed mischievous, but the harm is only local. A few farmers track it down, others do not, for about this time the bird begins to mend his ways. It cannot be denied either that it pecks young fruit of all kinds, and later pulls it off the trees, and if not driven away, considerable damage is done, especially if the orchard lies within a district where Crows abound. It is evident then that the gamekeeper must be allowed a little license, for where game is bred and preserved, especially in such places as Pheasant runs, the Crow may do much damage among the young birds; but why is the gamekeeper there, if not to scare away the feathered thieves with his gun? Once having experienced such a fright the Crow does not often return to the same place.
And now let us consider the bird’s good deeds.
The ploughman would be indeed unwise were he to scare away the Crow, that, following in the furrow of the plough, picks out from the freshly turned clods, the worms, grubs, and maggots, which are the farmer’s worst enemies; nor do the evicted tenants of overturned mouse-nests escape the strong beak of the bird;—and how busy it is when a plague of mice occurs, as it does in some seasons! Then occurs a wholesale massacre, and if this visitation happens in winter, the snow bears evident traces of the Crow’s sanguinary work.
It is also useful among the sheep and cattle, settling on their backs, and destroying the parasites that attack them. The beasts leave it undisturbed knowing that it is doing them good service. Neither must we forget that in villages, near human habitations it does excellent scavengering work. It knows the precise time at which the remnants of food are usually thrown out from the cottage on the rubbish heap, and waits on the roof, till the moment arrives when it can pounce on the promising morsels, which it carries away; thus removing what would otherwise soon have become putrid. In winter when pigs are killed, the Crows wait, among the neighbouring trees, for their share.
The only remaining question, then, is, in which part of the year this bird is harmful, and in which serviceable, and how long does each of these periods last. The destructive period is really of short duration, for the chickens soon grow into hens, the leverets become hares, the young birds leave the nests, the maize hardens, and ripe fruit lasts but a little while. That is to say, the destructive period lasts but a few weeks. And what does the Hooded Crow do for the rest of the year? It destroys insect pests, cleanses and purifies, and by its continuous activity, does a service to man, which no other creature could do.
Wherever and whenever this bird does harm it must be driven off, but not destroyed. The hens must be kept from roving, and the orchard must be watched. If it will not be scared away then it must be shot. But when busy in the furrow, the field, or the dunghill, let it be left in peace, for it is doing a beneficent work. Neither nature nor man can do without the Hooded Crow, and for this reason it must be treated indulgently.
The head, wings, tail, feet and throat of this bird are black, but not glossy; the lower breast, under-parts, and back ashen grey; the grey colour of the back forms a kind of mantle,—hence the name Mantle—or Hooded Crow. The strong curved beak is black, the nostrils covered by bristly feathers; the eyes dark brown; the feet strong and armed with thick scales, the soles rough.
To England and Wales the Hooded, often called the Grey or Royston Crow, is a regular and in many districts far too numerous a visitor, from October on during the winter. A few birds have remained to breed, and some cases of hybridism with the Carrion Crow occur in the North. In Ireland it has become a perfect scourge. In the Isle of Man it is said to nest each year. On the Scottish Mainland again they are far too many of this species. So greedy is he that Howard Saunders tells of having seen him eagerly devouring the carcase of a recently shot member of the same brood as himself. To some extent hybrids with the Carrion Crow are said to be fertile.
A Son of the Marshes says that the Cob—the Great Black-backed Gull, which is called the Carrion Gull, is a noble and open minded bird compared with the Dun Crow—the Hooded Crow of the foreshores. “His general conduct would lead you to think he was only looking about for amusement, up and down and over the water, just far enough to see if any prey, such as a dead fish or fowl, is washing in. He does not mean the gulls to share the spoil if he can help it. He flaps to the beach and out again just to make sure that it is coming all right, and gorbles to himself a little. This wave must beach it, he thinks; but no, with the receding of the wave the fish—a large dead skate—goes also. The next long roller may have more force in it, so he hopes, with half open wings and throat feathers puffed out, down to the very edge of the watery beach. Perching next on a large stone, with keen eye and outstretched neck, the bird sees it gather, a mile out. On it comes, gathering in force as it begins to crest up, until with a crash it breaks, and Hoody’s dead fish is flung high and dry almost at his feet. Hardly, however, has he had time to give one or two vicious digs at the now tender skin in order to get at his highly flavoured meat, when from all points of the compass other crows come shooting along like so many hawks to join in the banquet. We could have knocked them over well”, concludes our Marshman, “but on no account would we have done so for they were doing their appointed work, that of clearing up the refuse brought in by the tide, honestly and well. “Hoody” is one of the scavengers of the foreshores.”