With sunset there is a general homecoming behind our house: hundreds of rooks and accompanying jackdaws return to the rookery in Limekiln Wood. The corvid air fleets head in from all points, returning from the day’s foraging grounds around the town. There are the strident greeting calls – a caw-cophony if you like – of passwords given and passwords received, as the early-bird returnees acknowledge the arrival of others. Sometimes, it seems, an incoming squadron ends up in the wrong tree, and then there is an avian explosion, black silhouettes shot into the sky. Much rook-shouting and abuse ensues.
They sort themselves out, and the wood soon echoes to sounds of companionable muttering.
As the year progresses we will be treated to elaborate twilight fly-pasts and synchronised acrobatics that resemble the murmuration of starlings. And, as the weather warms and we sleep with open windows, so the night will be sound-tracked by the chuntering of rooks. I know from the sleepless small hours that they talk all night. ALL NIGHT. Sometimes I want to tell them to settle down in their nests, and SHUT UP.
The collective term for rooks, of course, is ‘a parliament’, and anyone who has listened to the proceedings of Britain’s House of Lords or Commons on the BBC will have a rough idea of how a rookery sounds. Some might say the corvids are the more intelligent. I could not possibly say.
The rookery wood thus gives us much pleasure, but there are strains of melancholy too in the resonant kaah-kaahing, and the tchaka-tchak counterpoint of jackdaws. It evokes the kind of nostalgia that is so very English, the longing for a lost and perfect England that never existed; a feeling that A E Housman conjures so well in stanza XL of A Shropshire Lad:
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
*
Post inspired by Jennifer Nichole Wells’ One Word Photo Challenge: Bittersweet, a colour that is roughly the colour of the sky in the photo.
copyright 2015 Tish Farrell
A Shropshire Lad by A E Housman – you can read the full work HERE courtesy of Gutenberg Press
To see/hear rook acrobatics click on the link below to my brief video …OF ROOK DANCING
Tish Farrell 
lovely picture
Thank you, Shimon.
The orange in the photo is really uncanny, evokes some nice warm feelings. Like this here incense I’m burning atop a piece of driftwood from the Washington coast. The wood resembles an antler, with nooks and crannies, good for wedging sticks of incense. Best to you and yours.
Your best is much appreciated in this neck of the woods, Bill. I like the sound of your incense burner driftwood.
Tish, this is wonderfully written, but then you never disappoint
That’s v. sweet of you to say so, Noel. Glad you enjoyed it.
it’s no exaggeration you know
A lovely photo but I’m not so keen on parliament chatting about all night long. 🙂
Hi Sue. Yep, the night-time noisy birds can be a bit pesky, but it would be sad without them.
Enjoyed the reading, Tish. Love this beautiful photo. 🙂
Good to know you enjoyed the post, Amy. 🙂
Don’t recall ever seeing a rook over here. Though we had a similar rookery in two large trees a few properties behind our house in Chester. I used to stare up at them from the French window in the lounge. ( daydreaming of sunnier skies as it happens!) Impressive.
Doesn’t it remind you of Hitchcock? You know what I mean, yes? 😉
We get Pied Crows. There are a pair that often rouse me out of my seat with their familiar raucous croak.I stand at the edge of the property and watch them over the valley, riding the thermals effortlessly.
That’s a nice photo by the way.
I admit to a Hitchcock moment when cropping the photo. I remember Pied Crows from Kenya. Even noisier than rooks.
I know that sound so well. When I lived in Crickhowell, the old castle ruin was behind my home, and the rooks and jackdaws made a wonderful racket.
It is a sound I love….Another wonderful image…thank you.
Many thanks, Janet.
Such a stunning image and beautiful imagery! Thank you so much for sharing.
It was a good choice of colour from you, Jennifer. Stirred up my brain cells and photo editing a treat 🙂
🙂
A wonderfully descriptive piece of writing – avian explosion… companionable muttering… chuntering of rooks. I love those!
A beautiful picture too.
Many thanks for your visit and kind comments. 🙂
A delightful wordfest here Tish. I roll them over in mind savouring them – caw-cophony -murmuration – chuntering. Wonderful stuff. I love your conclusion and the link to Housman. Very thought provoking.
Yes, Housman is deceptively simple in his ballad type rhymes, but lots of layers. He was hiding all kinds of sorrow. Glad you liked my caw-cophony etc
Parliament of rooks. I love it. I’ll add it to my list. I love your photograph, too.
Loved it from the beginning to the end, your description was so vivid I could hear the birds….And the parliament too 😉
😀
Fantastic image, Tish. Love your poem too. 🙂
A superb piece of musical writing.
What an interesting take on bittersweet, murders of crows and members of parliament…..
It’s where my mind wanders when I’m really meaning to write my book. Hey ho.
Beautifully written Tish, your words make my mind wander into spring and summer.
Hello Emma. Thanks for visiting my rookery 🙂