ROOKS RETURNING TO ROOST--VAST FLOCKS--ROOK PARLIAMENT--THE TWO ROOK
ARMIES AND THEIR ROUTES--ROOK LAWS, TRADITIONS, AND ANCIENT
HISTORY--"THROWS" OF TIMBER--THIEVING JACKDAWS.
As evening approaches, and the rooks begin to wing their way homewards,
sometimes a great number of them will alight upon the steep ascent close
under the entrenchment on the downs which has been described, and from
whence the wood and beech trees where they sleep can be seen. They do
not seem so much in search of food, of which probably there is not a
great deal to be found in the short, dried-up herbage and hard soil, as
to rest here, half-way home from the arable fields. Sometimes they
wheel and circle in fantastic flight over the very brow of the down,
just above the rampart; occasionally, in the raw cold days of winter,
they perch moping in disconsolate mood upon the bare branches of the
clumps of trees on the ridge.
After the nesting time is over and they have got back to their old
habits--which during that period are quite reversed--it is a sight to
see from hence the long black stream in the air steadily flowing onwards
to the wood below. They stretch from here to the roosting-trees, fully
a mile and a half--literally as the crow flies; and backwards in the
opposite direction the line reaches as far as the eye can see. It is
safe to estimate that the aerial army's line of march extends over quite
five miles in one unbroken corps. The breadth they occupy in the
atmosphere varies--now twenty yards, now fifty, now a hundred, on an
average say fifty yards; but rooks do not fly very close together like
starlings, and the mass, it may be observed, fly on the same plane.
Instead of three or four layers one above the other, the greater number
pass by at the same height from the ground, side by side on a level, as
soldiers would march upon a road: not meaning, of course, an absolute,
but a relative level. This formation is more apparent from an
elevation--as it were, up among them--than from below; and looking along
their line towards the distant wood it is like glancing under a black
canopy.
Small outlying parties straggle from the line--now on one side, now on
the other; sometimes a few descend to alight on trees in the meadows,
where doubtless their nests were situated in the spring. For it is a
habit of theirs, months after the nesting is over and also before it
begins, to pay a flying visit to the trees in the evening, calling _en
route_ to see that all is well and to assert possession.
The rustling sound of these thousands upon thousands of wings beating
the air with slow steady stroke can hardly be compared to anything else
in its weird oppressiveness, so to say: it is a little like falling
water, but may be best likened, perhaps, to a vast invisible broom
sweeping the sky. Every now and then a rook passes with ragged wing--
several feathers gone, so that you can see daylight through it;
sometimes the feathers are missing from the centre, leaving a great gap,
so that it looks as if the bird had a large wing on this side and on the
other two narrow ones. There is a rough resemblance between these and
the torn sails of some of the old windmills which have become dark in
colour from long exposure to the weather, and have been rent by the
storms of years. Rooks can fly with gaps of astonishing size in their
wings, and do not seem much incommoded by the loss--caused, doubtless,
by a charge of shot in the rook-shooting, or by the small sharp
splinters of flint with which the bird-keepers sometimes load their
guns, not being allowed to use shot.
Near their nesting-trees their black feathers may be picked up by dozens
in the grass; they beat them out occasionally against the small boughs,
and sometimes in fighting. If seen from behind, the wings of the rook,
as he spreads them and glides, slowly descending, preparatory to
alighting, slightly turn up at the edges like the rim of a hat, but much
less curved. From a distance as he flies he appears to preserve a level
course, neither rising nor falling; but if observed nearer it will be
seen that with every stroke of the wings the body is lifted some inches,
and sinks as much immediately afterwards.
As the black multitude floats past overhead with deliberate, easy
flight, their trumpeters and buglemen, the jackdaws--two or three to
every company--utter their curious chuckle; for the jackdaw is a bird
which could not keep silence to save his life, but must talk after his
fashion, while his grave, solemn companions move slowly onwards, rarely
deigning to `caw' him a reply. But away yonder at the wood, above the
great beech trees, where so vast a congregation is gathered together,
there is a mighty uproar and commotion: a seething and bubbling of the
crowds, now settling on the branches, now rising in sable clouds, each
calling to the other with all his might, the whole population delivering
its opinions at once.
It is an assemblage of a hundred republics. We know how free States
indulge in speech with their parliaments and congresses and senates,
their public meetings, and so forth: here are a hundred such nations,
all with perfect liberty of tongue holding forth unsparingly, and in a
language which consists of two or three syllables indefinitely repeated.
The din is wonderful--each republic as its forces arrive adding to the
noise, and for a long time unable to settle upon their trees, but
feeling compelled to wheel around and discourse. In spring each tribe
has its special district, its own canton and city, in its own trees away
in the meadows. Later on they all meet here in the evening. It is a
full hour or more before the orations have all been delivered, and even
then small bands rush up into the air still dissatisfied.
This great stream of rooks passing over the hills meets another great
stream as it approaches the wood, crossing up from the meadows. From
the rampart there may be seen, perhaps a mile and a half away, a dim
black line crossing at right angles--converging on the wood, which
itself stands on the edge of the table-land from which the steeper downs
arise. This second army is every whit as numerous, as lengthy, and as
regular in its route as the first.
Every morning, from the beech trees where they have slept, safe at that
elevation from all the dangers of the night, there set out these two
vast expeditionary corps. Regularly the one flies steadily eastward
over the downs; as regularly the other flies steadily northwards over
the vale and meadows. Doubtless in different country districts their
habits in this respect vary; but here it is always east and always
north. If any leave the wood for the south or the west, as probably
they do, they go in small bodies and are quickly lost sight of. The two
main divisions sail towards the sunrise and towards the north star.
They preserve their ranks for at least two miles from the wood; and then
gradually first one and then another company falls out, and wheeling
round, descends upon some favourite field, till by degrees, spreading
out like a fan, the army melts away. In the evening the various
companies, which may by that time have worked far to the right or to the
left, gradually move into line. By-and-by the vanguard comes sweeping
up, and each regiment rises from the meadow or the hill, and takes its
accustomed place in the return journey.
So that although if you casually observe a flock of rooks in the daytime
they seem to wander hither and thither just as fancy leads, or as they
are driven by passers-by, in reality they have all their special haunts;
they adhere to certain rules, and even act in concert, thousands upon
thousands of them at once, as if in obedience to the word of command,
and as if aware of the precise moment at which to move. They have their
laws, from which there is no deviation: they are handed down unaltered
from generation to generation. Tradition, indeed, seems to be their
main guide, as it is with savage human tribes. They have their
particular feeding grounds; and so you may notice that, comparing ten or
a dozen fields, one or two will almost always be found to be frequented
by rooks while the rest are vacant.
Here, for instance, is a meadow close to a farmstead--what is usually
called the home-field, from its proximity to a house--here day after day
rooks alight and spend hours in it, as much at their ease as the nag or
the lambs brought up by hand. Another field, at a distance, which to
the human eye appears so much more suitable, being retired, quiet, and
apparently quite as full of food, is deserted; they scarcely come near
it. The home-field itself is not the attraction, because other
home-fields are not so favoured.
The tenacity with which rooks cling to localities is often illustrated
near great cities where buildings have gradually closed in around their
favourite haunts. Yet on the small waste spots covered with cinders and
dustheaps, barren and unlovely, the rooks still alight; and you may see
them, when driven up from such places, perching on the telegraph wires
over the very steam of the locomotives as they puff into the station.
I think that neither considerations of food, water, shelter, or
convenience, are always the determining factors in the choice made by
birds of the spots they frequent; for I have seen many cases in which
all of these were evidently quite put on one side. Birds to ordinary
observation seem so unfettered, to live so entirely without rhyme or
reason, that it is difficult to convey the idea that the precise
contrary is really the case.
Returning to these two great streams of rooks, which pour every evening
in converging currents from the north and east upon the wood; why do
they do this? Why not go forth to the west, or to the south, where
there are hills and meadows and streams in equal number? Why not
scatter abroad, and return according to individual caprice? Why, to go
still further, do rooks manoeuvre in such immense numbers, and crows fly
only in pairs? The simple truth is that birds, like men, have a
history. They are unconscious of it, but its accomplished facts affect
them still and shape the course of their existence. Without doubt, if
we could trace that history back there are good and sufficient reasons
why rooks prefer to fly in this particular locality, to the east and to
the north. Something may perhaps be learnt by examining the routes
along which they fly.
The second division--that which goes northwards, after flying little
more than a mile in a straight line--passes over Wick Farm, and
disperses gradually in the meadows surrounding and extending far below
it. The rooks whose nests are placed in the elms of the Warren belong
to this division, and, as their trees are the nearest to the great
central roosting-place, they are the first to quit the line of march in
the morning, descending to feed in the fields around their property. On
the other hand, in the evening, as the army streams homewards, they are
the last to rise and join the returning host.
So that there are often rooks in and about the Warren later in the
evening after those whose habitations are farther away have gone by,
for, having so short a distance to fly, they put off the movement till
the last moment. Before watches became so common a possession, the
labouring people used, they say, to note the passage overhead of the
rooks in the morning in winter as one of their signs of time, so regular
was their appearance; and if the fog hid them, the noise from a thousand
black wings and throats could not be missed.
If, from the rising ground beyond the Warren or from the downs beyond
that, the glance is allowed to travel slowly over the vale northwards,
instead of the innumerable meadows which are really there, it will
appear to consist of one vast forest. Of the hamlet not far distant
there is nothing visible but the white wall of a cottage, perhaps,
shining in the sun, or the pale blue smoke curling upwards. This wooded
appearance is caused by timber trees standing in the hedgerows, in the
copses at the corners of the meadows, and by groups and detached trees
in the middle of the fields.
Many hedges are full of elms, some have rows of oaks; some meadows have
trees growing so thickly in all four hedges as to seem surrounded by a
timber wall; one or two have a number of ancient spreading oaks dotted
about in the field itself, or standing in rows. But there are not
nearly so many trees as there used to be. Numerous hedges have been
grubbed to make the fields larger.
Within the last thirty years two large falls of timber have taken place,
when the elms especially were thrown wholesale. The old men, however,
recall a much greater `throw,' as they term it, of timber, which
occurred twice as long ago. Then before that they have a tradition that
a still earlier `throw' took place, when the timber chiefly went to the
dockyards for the building of those wooden walls which held the world at
bay. These traditions go back, therefore, some eighty or a hundred
years. One field in particular is pointed out where stood a double row
or avenue of great oaks leading to nothing but a farmstead of the
ordinary sort, of which there is not the slightest record that it ever
was anything but a farmhouse. Now avenues of great oaks are not planted
to lead to farmsteads. Besides these, it is said, there were oaks in
most of the fields--oaks that have long since disappeared, the prevalent
tree being elm.
While all these `throws' of timber have successively taken place, no
attempt has been made to fill up the gaps; no planting of acorns, no
shielding with rails the young saplings from the ravages of cattle. If
a young tree could struggle up it could; if not, it perished. At the
last two `throws,' especially, young trees which ought to have been
saved were ruthlessly cut down. Yet even now the place is well
timbered; so that it is easy to form some idea of the forest-like
appearance it must have presented a hundred years ago, when rows of
giant oaks led up to that farmhouse door.
Then there are archaeological reasons, which it would be out of place to
mention, why in very ancient days a forest, in all probability, stood
hereabouts. It seems reasonable to suppose that in one way or another
the regular flight of the second army of rooks passing down into this
district was originally attracted by the trees. Three suggestions arise
out of the circumstances.
The wood in which both streams of rooks roost at night stands on the
last slope of the downs; behind it to the south extend the hills, and
the open tilled upland plains; below it northwards are the meadows. It
has, therefore, much the appearance of the last surviving remnant of the
ancient forest. There has been a wood there time out of mind: there are
references to the woods of the locality dating from the sixteenth
century. Now if we suppose (and such seems to have been really the
case) the unenclosed woodlands below gradually cleared of trees--thereby
doubtless destroying many rookeries--the rooks driven away would
naturally take refuge in the wood remaining. There the enclosure
protected them, and there the trees, being seldom or never cut down, or
if cut down felled with judgment and with a view to future timber, grew
to great size and in such large groups as they prefer. But as birds are
creatures of habit, their descendants in the fiftieth generation would
still revisit the old places in the meadows.
Secondly, although so many successive `throws' of timber thinned out the
trees, yet there may still be found more groups and rows of elms and oak
in this direction than in any other; that is, a line drawn northwards
from the remaining wood passes through a belt of well-timbered country.
On other side of this belt there is much less timber; so that the rooks
that desired to build nests beyond the limits of the enclosed wood still
found in the old places the best trees for their purpose. Here may be
seen far more rookeries than in any other direction. Hardly a farmhouse
lying near this belt but has got its rookery, large or small. Once
these rookeries were established, an inducement to follow this route
would arise in the invariable habit of the birds of visiting their
nesting-trees even when the actual nesting time is past.
Thirdly, if the inquiry be carried still farther back, it is possible
that the line taken by the rooks indicates the line of the first
clearings in very early days. The clearing away of trees and underwood,
by opening the ground and rendering it accessible, must be very
attractive to birds, and rooks are particularly fond of following the
plough. Now although the district is at present chiefly meadow land,
numbers of these meadows were originally ploughed fields, of which there
is evidence in the surface of the fields themselves, where the regular
`lands' and furrows are distinctly visible.
One or all of these suggestions may perhaps account for the course
followed by the rooks. In any case it seems natural to look for the
reason in the trees. The same idea applies to the other stream of rooks
which leaves the wood for the eastward every morning, flying along the
downs. In describing the hill district, evidence was given of the
existence of woods or forest land upon the downs in the olden time.
Detached copses and small woods are still to be found; and it happens
that a part of this district, in the line of the eastward flighty
belonged to a `chase' of which several written notices are extant.
The habits of rooks seem more regular in winter than in summer. In
winter the flocks going out in the morning or returning in the evening
appear to pass nearly at the same hour day after day. But in summer
they often stay about late. This last summer [1878] I noticed a whole
flock, some hundreds in number, remaining out till late--till quite
dusk--night after night, and always in the same place. It was an arable
field, and there they stood close together on the ground, so close that
in spots it was difficult to distinguish individuals. They were silent
and still, making no apparent attempt at feeding. The only motion I
observed was when a few birds arrived and alighted among them. Where
they thus crowded together the earth was literally black.
It was about three-quarters of a mile from their nesting-trees, but
nesting had been over for more than two months. This particular field
had recently been ploughed by steam tackle, and was the only one for a
considerable distance that had been ploughed for some time. There they
stood motionless, side by side, as if roosting on the ground; possibly
certain beetles were numerous just there (for it was noticeable that
they chose the same part of the field evening after evening), and came
crawling up out of the earth at night.
The jackdaws which--so soon as the rooks pack after nesting and fly in
large flocks--are always with them, may be distinguished by their
smaller size and the quicker beats of their wings, even when not
uttering their well-known cry. Jackdaws will visit the hencoops if not
close to the house, and help themselves to the food meant for the fowls.
Poultry are often kept in rickyards, a field or two distant from the
homestead, and it is then amusing to watch the impudent attempts of the
jackdaws at robbery. Four or five will perch on the post and rails,
intent on the tempting morsels: sitting with their heads a little on one
side and peering over. Suddenly one thinks he sees an opportunity.
Down he hops, and takes a peck, but before he has hardly seized it, a
hen darts across, running at him with beak extended like lance in rest.
Instantly he is up on the rail again, and the impetus of the hen's
charge carries her right under him.
Then, while her back is turned, down hops a second and helps himself
freely. Out rushes another hen, and up goes the jackdaw. A pause
ensues for a few minutes: presently a third black rascal dashes right
into the midst of the fowls, picks up a morsel, and rises again before
they can attack him. The way in which the jackdaw dodges the hens
though alighting among them, and as it were for the moment surrounded,
is very clever; and it is laughable to see the cool impudence with which
he perches again on the rail, and looks down demurely, not a whit
abashed, on the feathered housewife he has just been doing his best to
rob.