Nature Study
Round the Countryside—6
' Rooks and Rookeries'
ERIC PARKER
Rooks are crows, but crows aren't rooks, and there's a world of difference. Both belong to the crow family, but so do magpies, jays, and ravens. Rooks are friends of the farmers, but crows are their enemies, for the first eat grubs that destroy the crops, while the true crow loves nothing better than eggs and chicks.
Though there are grey or hooded crows to be found in Britain, the crow more commonly seen in England is the black or carrion. And one of the things Mr. Eric Parker is going to point out to you today is that the black crow and the rook, that are so wide apart, are very much alike to look at. But true crows are unsociable birds and build isolated nests, whilst rooks, as you know, love crowds. They go about in crowds ; they nest in crowds ; at evening the sky may be black with them.
The same old nests ; perhaps a stick or two more. The same old colony in the same old tree. The same old cawing. It is of the benevolent rook and his massed family life you are to hear this afternoon.