Things you need to know about ROOKS!
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- Опубликовано: 26 окт 2023
- If you have ever seen a group of large black birds, nesting close together near to farmland, the chances are high that you’ve been looking at rooks. These are members of the crow family and their communal nesting sites are known as rookeries.
Rooks are communal birds that nest, feed and roost in large flocks throughout the year. Sometimes there can be several hundred birds in one patch of trees. They are omnivores and use their featherless beaks to probe into mud for worms, beetles and other invertebrates. They will also occasionally eat carrion, birds eggs, grains and seeds and they will sometimes scavenge for scraps. They rely on large trees for nesting and roosting and their main habitat is agricultural areas, farmland and grassland although they can also be seen in urban places such as graveyards and large parks.
Rooks form long lasting pair bonds and often remain monogamous for life. Each pair will start to build their nests early in the year, usually during February and March but sometimes as early as January. These are high in the branches of large trees and can be just a metre or so away from other nests. Living so closely together does mean that the twigs they use for nest building are in high demand, and they are known to steal twigs from eachothers nests. To prevent this, the female usually guards the nest site whilst the male collects twigs and mud to bind the nest together with. Once the nest is complete, it is lined with wool, moss, leaves and sometimes even hair before the female lays between 3 and 5 pale greeney blue eggs with darker patches. These measure about 4cm long and she will incubate these alone for 15 to 16 days before they hatch. Both parents feed the chicks in the nest for 32 to 34 days when they are ready to fledge. After this, the young birds are fed by their parents outside of the nest for many more weeks until they are able to look after themselves. Some will then disperse to other rookeries whilst some will stay in the same area where they were raised into the autumn. Young rooks look very similar to adults but their bills are black, have feathers running along their tops and they lack the featherless patch at their bills base. Each pair of rooks will only nest once per year, but will maintain a close bond with their partner outside of the nesting season, feeding and roosting together. Amazingly some rookeries can last a very long time, there are several in the UK that have been in the same place for more than 100 years.
Just like other members of the crow family, rooks are really intelligent, they understand how to use basic tools almost to the same level as a chimpanzee and in one experiment a rook quickly learnt that adding rocks to water would raise the water level and make floating food that was previously out of reach available.
There are around 980 thousand pairs of rooks in the UK, but this represents a decline of about 20% over the past 25 years. Outside of the UK they are found across mainland Europe, into southern Russia and as far east as northern China. They have also been introduced to New Zealand, where they are treated as a pest and there are ongoing efforts to eradicate them. In some of their northern ranges they sometimes move south in cold winters but over most of their range they are resident all year round. The oldest rook ever recorded lived for 22 years and 11 months exactly, but they have an average lifespan of about 6 years. Here is one of the rooks calls.
Thanks to Fotolainen for providing some of the footage used in this video, the original video can be found here: • 234. Rook nest archite...
Some of the other footage and images used are creative commons, the originals and their licence details can be found at:
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commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.flickr.com/photos/1731629...
#rooks #crows #ukwildlife 
Животные
My favourite British bird ever since I was a child - I love their inquisitiveness, their intelligence and their cheeky attitude. Such fun to watch and study!
Met one in Oxfordshire today, it just hopped over to where I sat, wanting a feed, it was incredible.
This place is rooky
Me to now I don't need an alarm to wake up at 6:00 in the morning. They go rarr rarr rarr 😵💫😱😩😅
Me and my two boys are named after the birds under the Corvidae Family. My name is Jay, my oldest is Raven and youngest Jackdaw. My wife is now pregnant and we are planning to name our child Magpie if girl, Rook if boy.
I have a cat named rook
Great and yes I am a great lover of all Corvids .Shame they were introduced to NZ .No bird is a pest .People can be.Full marks to Germany and UK where we have Canada Geese , Nile geese and many more and accept them .Once on a bus I got off as a huge flock of crows were foraging for food on the grass verge .I sat with them and made a video..They made my day .Just as your videos do ..Greetings from Berlin or as I call it Crow city -
Yes the similarity between young rooks and crows is one of the things that make it harder sometimes to differentiate between corvids.. Good job we have Liam to put us straight!
I love all corvids, but you have to observe thier behaviours from thier own perspective to get the picture on just how clever (and sometimes amusing) they really are.
Nice one Liam! ⭐👍
I love their intelligence and general awareness. I told one off for going into a bin and pulling out a dirty nappy in a bag. It had a couple of trial nibbles and went back into the bin and with some effort pulled out a fast food box with chips and scraps.
A week later I was at a bench with a bag of crisps and this rook swooped down low over me a couple of times so I said Hello, left some crisps on the bench and wandered off. I turned round and I swear it was looking as if it was pretending to ignore me by trying to keep out of sight behind the bin.
I love the way they waddle too.
Thanks for this video. Rooks are one of my favourite birds, great to understand them properly. ❤
I absolutely love your videos. 👍
Thank you, I'm glad to hear it.
I was surprised to hear you say that rooks have declined in numbers recently . Here in Dorset I am seeing their nests in places I have never seen them before . For some reason I cannot begin to fathom they frequently build in ash trees next to a busy road . All sensible replies welcome
I think their numbers going down is perhaps overshadowed because they seem to be moving closer to urban environments and therefore are seen more often. I have no idea why they pick ash trees near roads though.
I love rooks. They walk like gansters and they love a rich tea biscuit.
Seeing our local rooks murmurate this year was one of the most special memories of the year. There were 1000s of them!
Silly question, but you're not confusing them with starlings, are you?
They are actually jackdaws, I always get them mixed up with rooks. Murmuration may not be the right word, but twice this year we have seen thousands appear from the village trees and nearby forest and behave just like starlings, but with the added benefit of the incredible sounds the jackdaws make.
@@InfernalPasquale Ah, cheeky little jackdaws. There's a large population ruling the roost in Bushy Park near me. They specialise there in treats like the dung beetles living in deer poo - I've seen them skilfully teasing it apart to gobble them. One chap asked me if the jackdaws bothering him were 'baby crows'. In a way, yes.
we have rooks which do this pretty much every evening all together and then they settle down in separate groups in the trees in our village
Love rooks. Been watching them hide acorns this year.
They're highly inteligent... I'm a train driver and see how clever they are. Unlike other birds they understand that the train goes along the track. They feed on birds that get hit by the trains but they get out of the way fast when a train is coming. They sometimes seem to play chicken and I suspect they might be teaching their youngsters to avoid the trains. Believe it or not they actually sometimes put ballast stones on the rails. I am completely certain it's them doing it. I've no idea why they do it.
We have a large rookery in a park in the town I live on the outskirts of. Every evening at dusk, hundreds, maybe even a thousand birds fly together back and forth landing in trees around where I am located and eventually settle back in their home in the park. It's a fascinating sight I never grow tired of. I wonder why they do this though.
Really interesting! I love corvids. I wonder what drove them to evolve such remarkable intelligence - most birds seem to be reasonably smart, but corvids are just on another level.
The rooks occasionally feed at our bird table, competing with crows and squirrels. I've watched them snatch a podded peanut from a crouching squirrel and fly off before the squirrel can reclaim it.
Very nice treatment of the subject - Rooks are interesting birds from this first look. Thank you.
Interesting how the juves look just like Crows, and also the adults behave and sound just like Crows too from what i've observed - apart from their more complex social structure; Eg nesting together in close proximity (something Crows just don't do.) But those beaks! So different, and very dinosaur. Almost like they are designed to dig into carrion like a Vultures. I always wonder how, and why Crows and Rooks evolved together and the reasons for the branching and diversification of the two species. Who came first, the Crow or the Rook? ....Or the Raven?
If we could remeber our different shaped ancestors (like Neanderthals), and how they had similar tools and weapons to us, then I'm sure we could easily answer those questions 🤔
I remember visiting Brora (GB) in the 50's as a child and watching the rooks in the trees surrounding the village cemetery. They looked really ominous to a seven-year-old.
That was brilliant. ❤❤
Thank you.
Loved this video. Also watched the crow one you suggested when this one finished. Always love your videos.
That's brilliant, thanks for watching the videos and supporting the channel.
Thanks Liam! Yet another great video!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
Awesome, i never knew this. Thank you. I have always seen them as the ugly brother of the beautiful crow.
Thankyou for this video.
Thanks for watching.
Love them so much
Thank you !!!
Beautifully made video with unobtrusive background music. Thanks.
Thank you so much
Love rooks and all members of the crow family; thanks for sharing.
Fantastic, thank you!
Thanks Lauren.
There is a rookery just down the road from me, and also a small one at the top end of my garden. It is VERY noisy here at breeding time. The young rooks make such a racket to be fed! The adult rooks also fly over our house and sometimes drop their twigs and branches on our roof with a clatter as they go! What I do like about rooks, apart from their intelligence which I have witnessed at our bird feeders, is when one sit on our TV aerial and seemingly talks to itself. Love to hear them do that. A soft conversational tone and odd clicking noises. They remind me a bit of parrots!
Hi Liam brilliant video thank you love the information you give to all of your videos they are fascinating birds to watch keep up with all your amazing videos and work Bernard
You're an oasis on RUclips, Liam, thanks. 😊 When the KoolAid kicks in, the wildlife will have Earth solely to themselves again
1:40 Here in Romania Rooks live in the city everywhere, busy streets, roundabouts, usually next to a body of water
I never knew about the rook! Now I do lol
Brilliant, I'm glad to have helped!
Thank u 😊
Thanks for watching!
There was a rookery at the bottom of my father’s land in Worcestershire. Daddy had a pet African Grey parrot called Henry which used to sit on a bar in the garden, but my father forgot to clip his wings and Henry took off one day, just when the rooks were nesting. We never saw him again.
I'm crazy for corvids
I love Rooks and Corvids - that was a great and informative video - thank you - subscribed to your channel.
Thank you and a belated welcome to the channel. I hope you have enjoyed some of the other videos I have uploaded.
I live in the north east of Scotland and the only corvid we are missing are Ravens. Lots of Rooks though!
amazing species
I adore rooks.
Thank you Liam. I really enjoyed this video and learned more about Rooks. What clever intelligent birds they are. Are crows, rooks and ravens very similar? Love you video content. Thank you.
I'm not Liam, but my experiences with crows and ravens in the US would indicate a similar degree of intelligence. I don't really know that much about their mating or nesting behavior, but crows, especially, are greatly attracted to shiny objects and are very curious.
I tested crows and rooks by suspending cooked chicken attached to a long piece of string in a glass bottle, only an inch of string emerging from the bottle top. At first they just peered at the chicken and poked the glass trying to get at it, some pulling on the string but failing to get the chicken all the way up. Minutes later one pulled the string from the bottle, taking the prize. Both crows and rooks could solve this test, both resorting to pushing the bottle over to make pulling the string easier. Smart birds.
Thank you. They are quite similar in appearance and intelligence levels. I have done a video about the differences between them titled " how to identify the crows of the UK". I would post a link, but I'm on my phone so it's hard to do.
@@AShotOfWildlife Think I watched it when I discovered your site a while ago. I don't comment on many videos unless I've not got much work on. Keep up the good work!
Another super video.
Thank you!
Great video. There are some Rooks in our semi-rural neighborhood. A video on Ravens would be most welcome. They seem rarer.
Hi Liam, Rooks are so intelligent it’s even suggest they have some kind of rudimentary language. Not sure what to make of that, but when you listen to their complex chatter in the rookery it sounds very much like conversation.
Thanks!🪶
Thank you!
They are the only birds that play chess.
The corvid family are like those military dudes that sport an all black tactical gear but the rooks are the ones that wear the skull balaclava
Great video. Thank you for the education. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I often see rooks and jackdaws congregate, when on the ground feeding.
I recently saw a lot of chasing off a sparrow hawk, the noise overhead made me look up at what was happening
Would it be possible to do a survey video on nest types?
I see a lot of nests out riding, they're obviously species specific, but I'm crap at identifying them.
Thanks for the suggestion. The issue is that so many nests look similar and the differences are small enough to not be able to show them clearly in a video.
Great and fluent video, Liam! My neighbourhood has a Nature Reserve and their colony starts literally from it's border. They are wise politically as well :) Nobody can touch their nests there.
In Denmark, the rooks live in large groups together with jackdaws. I have always wondered why these two different species live together
😄👍
Any chance of a video on Hooded Crows? There are loads here in Cyprus.
In Britain, these are only seen regularly in Scotland and Ireland. Liam would be lucky to see one where he lives in East Anglia, but might get lucky if a migrant from Scandinavia flies in.
👍👍👍👍👍
Rooks have got much rarer. I grew up in rural Norfolk in the 70s and Rooks were everywhere often in flocks of hundreds. Their favoured rookery was often a big oak tree in a park like setting and their haunting cries would form a real countryside backdrop. On going to Norfolk more recently you just don't see them any more. I don't think farmers liked them, you used to see them strung up on gibbets. I suppise just like with so many birds now the countryside is no home for them now. Unlike their, carrion relatives they don't seem to have come into the cities which is a shame as it would be an ideal environment for Rooks.
They gather on the church and my roof most mornings from first day light then stay for about 20 minutes then fly off
❤️❤️❤️🥰🥰🥰🌹🌹🌹👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️😊😊😊
6 years, that's a really short lifespan compared to the 40 wild and seventy years in domesticated jackdaws..
were rooks ever introduced to far away places by European colonists?
Yes, but only to New Zealand apparently. I suspect they were taken to other places but perhaps they did not survive- or it hasnt been written about at least.
I thought they were also related to ravens obviously not
I think all corvids are related.. Ravens are the daddies though.
we all know that a group of crows is a murder, though 2or3 could be called an attempted murder.
a group of rooks is called a parliament, or a clamour, where im from ive heard both; either way i say good day, because brits are a superstious lot.
I thought it was only magpies you say "good day" to?
Rook Equal Opportunities, I suppose.
That'll be a pain - there's a whole parliament of 'em round my way. I'll never get anything done.
@@robertstallard7836 Ah yes. If you see a lone magpie it's bad luck and you're meant to doff your hat and say "hello Mr Magpie, how's your lovely wife?", otherwise bad luck will befall you. "One for sorrow, two for joy.." and all that.
@@Clive697 You've got it - You have to ask how his wife is (despite the fact that you might just as well be speaking with his wife as they both look the same).
Round our way, you're also supposed to call them "Captain" and salute them. Not so much a proper, "longest way up, shortest way down" military salute - more a two-fingers-on-the-brim, commoner-to-Lord type salute.
That's all well and good, but who gave all these magpies commissions? What regiment are they with? Did they ALL go to Sandhurst?
It's all very confusing.
@@robertstallard7836 Ah, you let the black and white blighters get away with too much: "Captain", indeed! They do strut around as if they own the place, don't they? Though I find the cheeky characters a lot of fun, they don't always deserve the salute. Should get a one-finger salute at nesting time when they're raiding songbird nests! Got to admit I still recite the line (whether husband or wife bird) if I see a lone magpie. My great-uncle on a Somerset farm told me about magpie lore, when he wasn't blasting them and other corvids to bits as 'pests' with his shotgun.
Is there any possibility that you could cover the stoat? Amazing little creatures
Absolutely! They're on my list, but I haven't got/found enough footage of them yet.