Reflecting on walnut trees

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Over the past few weeks the same incident has replayed several times. A grey squirrel has hopped across the lawn with a large walnut in its mouth. It has stopped, dug at the grass with its front feet, decided the spot was no use, and then moved on to repeat this action until a suitable spot is found. There it buries the walnut. Do they ever find them again? I suppose so, but I never see it happen. Do we have a forest of sapling walnuts sprouting from the lawn in spring? No - so I guess they are retrieved and eaten by the squirrels at some point in the winter.

I never noticed walnut trees until I moved to Lincolnshire. They probably existed where I lived in the other parts of England, but not until I moved to this county in the East Midlands did I see them in sufficient numbers that I became aware of the trees. The village where I live has several. A couple are in a small playground/park where they provide amusement and collecting opportunities for the local children. Another one is in a field that is visible from the front of my house.

This tree is slowly succumbing to age and the weather. Last year, during particularly windy weather, a large bough fell off. This year the top branches were completely free of leaf. It can't have many more years left. The field in which it is located was once pasture and I imagine that the sheep and cattle found its shade welcome in high summer. For thirty years or more, however, it has been used for vegetable and cereal growing and as far as the farmer is concerned it has become an obstacle around which agricultural machinery and vehicles must be carefully guided. I posted a photograph of it on the blog two years ago when it was looking very fine against a dark and threatening October sky. The other day it was the tree's shape in the mist, augmented by a gathering of rooks in its topmost branches, that caught my eye.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Living sculpture

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As I was walking down the promenade in Hornsea, East Yorkshire, my eyes fell upon the public art and street furniture that the council had commissioned to beautify the area. Most notable was the semi-abstract relief sculpture above a small pool featuring birds and the town's name. I also admired the long, narrow garden that had been assembled with walls of granite, short sections of "groynes", undulating grass, shingle, beach flowers and shrubs. The promenade railings in the style of an ocean liner's with a hardwood hand-rail, inclined uprights and lines of stainless steel cable between struck the right note by the sea. And the black, bird sculptures that topped the large, ornamental street lights were a nice detail. What a pity, I thought, about the concrete, tarmac and brick desert that had been created near the leisure centre.

As I made my way back up the promenade to rejoin my companions I looked up at the street lights and did a "double take". The bird sculptures that I'd admired were turning their heads to follow my passage: they were in fact real birds - rooks! Raising my camera I took a few shots of the living statues and carried on my way. After I'd walked a few yards I turned and looked back at them. It was obvious that two of the birds were rooks, but what about the third one? I had no binoculars so I resolved to identify it by studying my photographs when I put them on the computer.

Viewing the bird at 100% reveals that it is clearly an immature rook, a product of this year's nesting season. The reason it looks very odd, and made me wonder whether or not it was a carrion crow, is the shape of its beak.  Half of the upper mandible is broken off. Despite this handicap the bird appeared to be foraging successfully with its parents and managing to cope. I hope it continues to do so.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rooks, hoar frost and adverts

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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

The intelligence and vanity of rooks

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It is said that among the birds of the world some of the most intelligent are members of the crow family (Corvidae). New Caledonia crows (Corvus moneduloides) have been observed whittling twigs and leaves then using them to poke into holes to extract insects and grubs which they then ate. They've even been fitted with "tail-cams" and had their activities filmed. Some researchers claim that crows can count up to 3 or 4, though since they also think parrots can count to 6, that isn't quite the ringing endorsement of their intelligence that it might at first appear. However, experiments have shown that crows can equate certain sounds with types of food, and though they aren't quite up there with Pavlov and his dogs, it does indicate a rudimentary intelligence. As does the action of Swedish crows that follow the fishermen who fish through holes in frozen lakes. The crows tug repeatedly on lines left at the holes until a caught fish is brought out on to the ice to be eaten.

But, whilst there is plenty of documented evidence of the intelligence of crows, there is little concerning their vanity. I do know that jackdaws (Corvus monedula) will steal gold rings, jewels, silver paper, in fact any small shiny object, and that collections of such stuff are often found near their nests. But that excepted I'm not aware of any other narcissistic activity. Except for one that I stumbled upon the other day. When I was in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, walking past an old cinema - the Picture Drome that dates from 1920 - I looked up and noticed a rook (Corvus frugilegus) perched on the top of the remains of a weather vane. "Why was it there?" I wondered. Then it dawned on me. On its flights around the town it must have noticed the brass cockerels on top of the weather vanes of the churches. Being an intelligent (and aspirational) species it clearly felt that rooks would look so much better at the pinnacle of a building than a common farmyard fowl, so it was demonstrating this incontrovertible fact to all who cared to look. It had a friend with whom it had obviously been sharing this theory (see it lower down in the photograph), and when one grew tired of gripping the top of the metal pole, the other bird took over the modelling duties.

So there we have it, this photograph of a weather vane is concrete proof that crows are not only intelligent but vain!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rooks

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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