In the previous post Chasing the light over Townsend Meadow my header photo featured my ‘stand-on-bed-while-using-open-rooflight-as-tripod’ school of photography. I now confess to using the same method to spy on my local corvids. I think the pair flitting above the field fence may be carrion crows. It’s hard to tell at this distance, but we do have a couple who come daily to forage in Townsend Meadow. It is part of their territory that includes the Linden Field across the road. Also each year they come with an offspring. They call to each other across the field. I note a strain of lament in it.
But back to spying. If, with my stand-camera-on-open-window method, I then turn the lens 45 degrees to the right I can then cover activities in the rookery in the wood beside Sytche Lane. The lane borders the field boundary, and the wood borders the lane and is an unkempt sort of place inaccessible to us ordinary Wenlock folk. Both rooks and jackdaws congregate here, and in large numbers. At dusk, and particularly in autumn, they put on breath-taking balletic performances, swooping and swirling for many minutes over the meadow. If you happen to be out there when they start (sometimes my return from the allotment coincides with the opening passes of the corvid air show) it can be exhilaratingly eerie, and especially when a cohort, several dozen strong, whisks by my shoulder. There’s a rush of air. Wheeeeesh. Then gone before you register quite what happened.
You can get a gist of this phenomenon from my short video at the end of the post.
Related: Rooks Dancing in the New Moon
Tish Farrell 
Your informal tripod serves you well – I love these shots! And the wave made by the rooks is mesmerising 🙂
Thanks, Sarah.
I love the ways you find to take your photos and they always turn out so well. The video was awesome.
Thanks, Izzy. Glad you liked the vid.
Fun little video but do be careful. a bed isn’t a very stable surface.
Thanks, Beverly. And yes I do take care, tho it’s a cabin bed and pretty solid.
Your high-end equipment serves you well – great shots, and an absorbing video too.
I was pleased that I could still find the video as I did it so long ago. I was going to do more.
You should!
That gold-bronze is remarkable in the first shot! I had to remind myself this week how much beauty is available any time of year, even this month, and your shots are always evidence of that. Thanks for sharing lady! Hi and be well.
Cheers, Bill. We do have our magic moments on the Edge – as you say, even in November.
Love the video especially!
Thanks, Cindy.
Brilliant set of images!
They are noisy bu**ers! But a beautiful ballet. You have a lot of rooks! We have crows which can be noisy at times and at the moment we have a lot of starlings who come to feed in the fields and make a similar sight as they head off to the reed beds where they spend the night. It is very difficult to get photos of them and like you, they often fly overhead with a whooshing sound and far to close to capture. Nature is fabulous.
I somehow don’t mind the noise they make, though I think they must have moved further into the wood to roost. On summer nights I used to hear them chuntering to each other all night. But I’d love to see a starling murmuration. We have only a small colony in Wenlock, though their numbers are building. So far I’ve only seen them doing a sort of musical chairs on the power lines near the allotment. Which reminds me – I have some photos.
Oh, watching them on the power lines is so amusing. They do that outside our house. Shuffling up to make room. 😊 I’m sure I have a post about them.
So you’re a bird stalker, eh? Better that than stalking people. 🙂 Your spot of bird watching is spot on.
Thank you, Janet 🙂
What a spectacle – quite Hitchcocky!
Now there’s a phrase to conjure with, Dries – Hitchcocky! 🙂
Informal tripod, indeed. One has to wonder if the neighbours are safe?
‘Miss T, Much Wenlock’s answer to the rural paparazzi!’
😉
Lovely light, and what a spectacle.
That’s an interesting thought. I don’t usually spot any humans out the back, not unless it’s the tractor driver a few times a year. I have heard that deer sometimes go along the path behind our house, but I’m never up early enough to look. That would be a sight worth nabbing on one’s ‘doorstep’.
oh wow what a sight – simply fabulous, although somewhat concerned about your precarious position to capture them!!
It’s not as precarious as it sounds, Becky. The velux window is right above the cabin bed which is against a wall 🙂
Phew…..I’ll stop worrying then, well maybe not as much!
It’s very nice of you to worry 🙂
Stunning!
Very nice post
Thank you.
Wonderful observations. Yes, the antics of these corvids can be spectacular. We have a very large jackdaw roost near us in Marple so when we are back they love to wake us early but their flight into roost is amazing. You capture all these birds so well.
Jackdaws can be such rackety souls, but I do like their sociable habits.
What a lovely way to describe them ‘rackety souls’.
Back in the spring/summer we had a family frequenting the ash tree on our garden bounary. My, did they have a lot to say for themselves 🙂
Interesting as its a mix of ash and tall poplars at the back of us along the Middlewood Way.