The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Land Management => Topic started by: juliem on June 18, 2017, 07:44:00 am
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I seem to have a rookery this year which has tsken resident in some oak trees in some land I own next to my house.They are extremely noisy in the morning.I even had one that fell down my chimney yesterday..wrong type of cowl.
My 12 acres are graxed by sheep.Do these rooks have any positive attributes /effects on my land?
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I must admit to a soft spot for the corvids. As a young vet I had a pet jackdaw for a while.it just flew into my flat and stayed for a time. It was a bit stand-offish - only ever chatted to my girlfriends, never to me and had a habit of swooping into my dinner and grabbing the best bits; that and making a mess of the lampshade it liked to roost on.
Then there was Joe-crow who came in with broken wing and leg. I never managed to get him flying properly but he ended up homed to an estate gardener where he'd climb bushes and glide over to where the chap was digging and then hunt out the best bits. My boss made me get rid of him 'cos when Joe wandered around the surgery he had a habit of pulling on shoe-lace ends and undoing them also really winding the caged cats up. In the early weeks I'd made him a metal splint for his foot and when he got to the ramp he'd lift the other leg and ski down it
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Rooks will patrol fields and clean up leatherjackets.
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Ours patrol the duck run looking for 'lost' eggs. They also have a habit of eating lamb creep.
Apart from that, I've never seen them do any harm, and as Buttermilk says, they do eat leatherjackets etc.
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I too have a soft spot for corvids. I had a tame crow and it was the most fascinating and intelligent animal I have ever kept.
I'm sure we are all aware of the damage they do to other birds and animals, but I read somewhere that about 90% of what they eat is insects. The main attacks on other creatures is when they have young to feed. (Obviously there are exceptions like when they discover an easy and regular supply of eggs)
But I actually presented my crow with a newly dead chick and it ignored it. Similarly, I left it for a while with a dead lamb and it showed no interest in pecking its eyes out. I know this sounds rather macabre, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't setting my own animals up for imminent attack.
Difficult to harbour warm feelings towards corvids I'm sure when your own animals have suffered, and I have felt the same when some treasured birds have had their nest and young decimated by domestic cats. Yet it's no more the corvids' fault than it is the cats' - it's just nature.
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After I mow the crows descend. I rather like jackdaws. Close up you can see the different shades of grey. (Not 50, though).
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The noise is starting to get to me though.....my once tranquil garden is now longer the peaceful haven it was.
I know that their are worse noises like traffic...but I think I am paying the price for having let some young oak trees grow in a field by the side of my house years ago...With the hot weather/open windows at night this week has been constant squaking activity ...
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I think maybe they make a whole lot of noise when they have fledged chicks - jackdaws do. Jackdaws stay in their family units and mutter away to each other, as well as their louder shouting. I find that endearing.
Apparently rook nestling pie is excellent - you just have to climb the tree to get them first :roflanim:
I really don't think there's much you can do about them, just give in and enjoy the sounds of nature :innocent:
It would seem rather excessive to fell the trees just to shut the birds up.
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Many moons ago when I was at college - shooting gangs were organised every evening to blast away near certain trees to prevent the rooks from landing and taking up residence for that season. The rooks still nested but not in the trees right outside the dormitory windows.
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We too have an excess of the black feathery things. A set of overhead cables doesn't help matters. They arrange themselves on them to look like a musical score then crow their tuneless warble. If you get close enough to the ones on the fence line they give you the look of a superior and ancient species bewildered at our inability to fly. The numbers now are at least 50 plus and the dawn chorus enough to wake the dead.
Crow soup, crow pie, crow and chips? Remember The Two Ronnies and The Crow Restaurant sketch?
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They are amazing creatures, they are very intelligent for birds. I quite like the screech they make. I would leave them be.