Ah, a bird tree. 🙂 Always fun to spot one of those. I saw one the other day at the Preserve that was full of cormorants. It made me laugh out loud. And I’ve always enjoyed the phrase “up sticks.”]
Your photo of Upping Sticks is almost as pretty as the village in South Bucks that goes by the same name! Wonderful photo ma’am.
Spoiler Alert – I actually know of no villages named Upping Sticks in Bucks or anywhere else but it’s so much fun to say… Upping Sticks, Upping Sticks (it could be a good name for a village)
Are Rooks just another name for crows or are they Ravens? I don’t have an English bird book and rook isn’t listed, so I’m assuming it’s either a bird we don’t have or a nickname that isn’t listed. As for Cormorants in a tree, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them anywhere but on rocks in or near the water, usually around here, the Atlantic Ocean. They don’t seem to fly inland.
The Cormorants are the world’s greatest fishers. They fished so much they drove the Bald Eagles away from the Vineyard which many people objected to,. Since it was a natural (not man-made) event, no one was allowed to interfere. We missed the eagles flying over Nantucket Sound, but now they fly over the Merrimack River and some of our bigger lakes and rivers, so in the end, they just moved around to where the cormorants don’t go. Which turned out to be fine.
Rooks are different to crows. They have rather grey fibrous looking beaks and live in flocks (rookeries). Our carrion crows tend to live in pairs only. And then there are ravens which are bigger than both and are very majestic and tend to frequent solitary locations.
Thank you! Our “standard” crow is a flock bird. You almost never see one alone. They are probably about the same size as your crows and probably closely related. We do have ravens, though not around here — but they are listed in my book, so they live somewhere in North American. We also have a much smaller crow — Fish Crows — who live (what a surprise) on fish. They don’t travel in big flocks the way the standard crows travel. Mostly you see them alone or in pairs, or occasional, three of them. They are more common than the regular crow and as far as I know, they live everywhere in North and South America.
I went to an English bird site. You have four kinds of crows — Carrion Crows (who seem to closely resemble our Fish crows. Our standard American Crows sound the same as yours but are much more gregarious. We do not have Rooks, but we do have Magpies and Ravens. Theoretically, we have them here, but I have never seen one. They are as big as many hawks and have a similar flight pattern.
Crows — all crows — are considered the smartest of all the birds. Magpies especially. We’ve only had ONE visit from crows. A whole flock of them came to visit one morning. There must have been a couple of hundred of them. They covered the deck and all the trees nearby. They stayed for a few minutes, then they all took off in a group and left. They must have been the standard American Crow. Not big enough for ravens who anyway aren’t gregarious and too big for fish crows.
Thanks for the information!!
Interesting corvid insights from your side of the Atlantic, Marilyn. It must have been amazing to have a whole flock descend on you. I can imagine the whoosh of departure. And yes they do seem to be the super-brains of our bird world. I’ve seen vids on YouTube of crows putting hard-to-crack nuts on the highway for vehicles to run over. Possibly in Japan. And I’ve just remembered the Hooded Crows (Hoodies) they have in Scotland. A handsome bird once thought to be a variation of a carrion crow but now is considered a separate species: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/birds/hooded-crow/
Our very first upping I think, definitely our first upping sticks. One of them looks ready to up sticks!
Tish Farrell 
Love these silhouettes.
Thanks, Sherry.
Simply stunning!
Thanks, Emma.
Nice one. I took a photo of a tree the other day with dozens of starlings on top of the branches, noisy things too!
Am very fond of birds in branches. Good to know you have starlings. We have hardly any in Wenlock.
We get starlings every year, though the first year I am sure we had Fieldfares, but none since then.
Haven’t seen a fieldfare for years. Used to see them up on the moors near Glossop.
Excellent
Ah, a bird tree. 🙂 Always fun to spot one of those. I saw one the other day at the Preserve that was full of cormorants. It made me laugh out loud. And I’ve always enjoyed the phrase “up sticks.”]
janet
T’is a good phrase. But cormorants in a tree would be very dramatic.
They certainly were.
regular sight on one of our walks in Portugal!
Your photo of Upping Sticks is almost as pretty as the village in South Bucks that goes by the same name! Wonderful photo ma’am.
Spoiler Alert – I actually know of no villages named Upping Sticks in Bucks or anywhere else but it’s so much fun to say… Upping Sticks, Upping Sticks (it could be a good name for a village)
It sounds just the place to be twinned with Much Wenlock, Thom. Either that or Nether Wallop 🙂
Ha! I prefer Pooh sticks, but it doesn’t work for the challenge 😦 😦
Nothing like a game of Pooh sticks though.
Are Rooks just another name for crows or are they Ravens? I don’t have an English bird book and rook isn’t listed, so I’m assuming it’s either a bird we don’t have or a nickname that isn’t listed. As for Cormorants in a tree, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them anywhere but on rocks in or near the water, usually around here, the Atlantic Ocean. They don’t seem to fly inland.
The Cormorants are the world’s greatest fishers. They fished so much they drove the Bald Eagles away from the Vineyard which many people objected to,. Since it was a natural (not man-made) event, no one was allowed to interfere. We missed the eagles flying over Nantucket Sound, but now they fly over the Merrimack River and some of our bigger lakes and rivers, so in the end, they just moved around to where the cormorants don’t go. Which turned out to be fine.
Rooks are different to crows. They have rather grey fibrous looking beaks and live in flocks (rookeries). Our carrion crows tend to live in pairs only. And then there are ravens which are bigger than both and are very majestic and tend to frequent solitary locations.
Thank you! Our “standard” crow is a flock bird. You almost never see one alone. They are probably about the same size as your crows and probably closely related. We do have ravens, though not around here — but they are listed in my book, so they live somewhere in North American. We also have a much smaller crow — Fish Crows — who live (what a surprise) on fish. They don’t travel in big flocks the way the standard crows travel. Mostly you see them alone or in pairs, or occasional, three of them. They are more common than the regular crow and as far as I know, they live everywhere in North and South America.
I went to an English bird site. You have four kinds of crows — Carrion Crows (who seem to closely resemble our Fish crows. Our standard American Crows sound the same as yours but are much more gregarious. We do not have Rooks, but we do have Magpies and Ravens. Theoretically, we have them here, but I have never seen one. They are as big as many hawks and have a similar flight pattern.
Crows — all crows — are considered the smartest of all the birds. Magpies especially. We’ve only had ONE visit from crows. A whole flock of them came to visit one morning. There must have been a couple of hundred of them. They covered the deck and all the trees nearby. They stayed for a few minutes, then they all took off in a group and left. They must have been the standard American Crow. Not big enough for ravens who anyway aren’t gregarious and too big for fish crows.
Thanks for the information!!
Interesting corvid insights from your side of the Atlantic, Marilyn. It must have been amazing to have a whole flock descend on you. I can imagine the whoosh of departure. And yes they do seem to be the super-brains of our bird world. I’ve seen vids on YouTube of crows putting hard-to-crack nuts on the highway for vehicles to run over. Possibly in Japan. And I’ve just remembered the Hooded Crows (Hoodies) they have in Scotland. A handsome bird once thought to be a variation of a carrion crow but now is considered a separate species: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/birds/hooded-crow/
Our very first upping I think, definitely our first upping sticks. One of them looks ready to up sticks!
🙂
Birds are so characterful in silhouette.
I’m always on the look out for some good silhouettes.