Rooks, hoar frost and adverts

click photo to enlarge

When "Frozen Britain" (copyright - BBC TV) is in the grip of a "White Hell" (copyright - unimaginative and overworked journalists on, it seems, every newspaper) movement becomes more restricted than usual. The paths, where they exist in rural areas, have become packed snow which has turned to ice: minor roads ditto. Major roads have largely been kept open, but fresh falls and freeze-thaw make stretches periodically difficult or impassable. Consequently the radius over which I have chosen to roam during the past week has been less than two miles, the odd shopping expedition by car excepted. And the amount of time I've spent indoors has increased. This doesn't have to be a bad thing because it directs you to activities that need doing or that you would like to do. It's also a time when you take your pleasures where you can, and when you find fun in unexpected places.

Over the past couple of days I've had a few good laughs at the advertising pitches that the snow has prompted the manufacturers of 4X4 vehicles to make in the press and elsewhere. Did you know that Toyota manufactures the only such vehicles ever to have driven to the North Pole? I didn't, but once I'd read it I had to be physically restrained from going out immediately and buying one. I mean, it stands to reason that a vehicle able to do that MUST be able to cope with anything that the British weather can throw at it. Then there was the Land Rover Freelander 2 advert with the subtext "don't you wish you had one of these in this snowy weather" and the line "anywhere is possible". That last one had me wondering. Anywhere? Now I know that the school-run is possible because I see them on it. And I also know that parking on the pavement is possible because I have to step round them (and resist the temptation to walk over them). And many 4X4 drivers (owners of Freelanders included) can drive on grass verges and churn them up - in fact many seem to see it as a duty, so I know they can go there too. But anywhere? How about into the average sized parking space? In fact, the press reported that one Lincolnshire driver this week found that his Freelander didn't stop him leaving a snow-covered road and ending up in a drainage ditch with tragic consequences. Anywhere? Not really.

The truth is, manufacturers of such vehicles know that many people's (especially men's) capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds, and the ability to go to the shops at any time, including on the two or three days of the year when that might not be possible for two-wheel drive cars, is all the bait needed to make people part with a sum that can buy two or three perfectly good and less destructive vehicles. Of course none of the adverts mentioned the massive redundancy involved in these thirsty, heavy, over-engineered trucks dragging around excess metal for the other three hundred and sixty days of the year.

I was mulling this over as I photographed the rooks at the top of the hoar-frost covered churchyard trees in the village the other day. The easy grace with which they slipped from their perch, then glided and slowly flapped to their destination made me wonder if, one day, man will be able to move about as easily, and with as little impact on his environment.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rooks

click photo to enlarge
I recall that on at least one occasion during my childhood the gun club in the market town where I lived took their weapons at the beginning of April and blasted the nests in a nearby rookery. Twigs, adults and young birds were destroyed by the co-ordinated fire of multiple shot guns. Quite what was achieved by this I don't know, but it seemed to satisfy the blood-lust of those involved.

Like most large, black birds the rook (Corvus frugilegus) has something of a bad name. Yes, it can eat newly planted seed, grazes on young plants, and sometimes joins the carrion crow (Corvus corone) in feeding on dead wild and farm animals. But, it also makes great inroads into invertebrates that are destructive to plant life, and deals very effectively with plagues of caterpillars. So it is by no means clear that it has an entirely negative effect on arable farms here in Lincolnshire or elsewhere. Nonetheless, the irregular persecution of rooks continues, sometimes by illegal means.

Perhaps if people knew more of the habits of the rook they might view it in a different light. The species is highly gregarious (just like people), and is thought to be mainly monogamous, often having the same mate for life (also like us!) In the UK it tends to be a home bird, rarely moving more than 60 miles or so from the place it was born, though rooks from Northern Europe do migrate south and west for the winter, swelling the populations of the countries where the weather is milder. It is a colonial breeder, favouring the very tops of tall trees that are located in clumps. My village, very typically for England, has a rookery in the tallest trees of the churchyard. People have long ascribed to the rook intelligence greater than that found in most birds, and have often described an apparently organised meeting of them on the ground as a "parliament." Recent research has proved that it's no bird-brain, showing that in some circumstances it is capable of finding and using tools to secure its food, something that is not observed in other species.

On a recent evening walk we came upon a couple of hundred rooks strung out along some wires. I took a photograph of the birds sitting there in serried ranks. However, as we rounded a line of trees they decided we were too close for comfort and in their fright took flight. The cropped image above shows a small group of the much larger total as they swirled and tumbled off the wires and caught the wind that carried them to a safe distance from us.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 110mm (220mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On