Revisiting The Rookeries of Wick St Lawrence

It has been under a month since I last did a count of the rook activity in the village, March the 14th to be precise, and much has changed. Some winners and oddly a strange loss.

Finally the weather in this part of Somerset has improved. We've had rain, more rain than I'd like to see again during spring. I think this may be the first year I've not experienced one of those dry early March days when there is dust billowing along the lanes, which for me is one of the signs of spring arriving, dry roads and dust on the car.  But we're in April now and after a Biblical deluge on Saturday morning it seems we're set fair for a few dry days. Perfect then for a pre supper amble to catch up on the rooks in the village on a Sunday evening.

A month is a long time in the natural world. On my last visit as I came home from work, it was around 6.30pm, bleak and almost dark. By my next visit last night at roughly the same time of day now the clocks have changed the sun was strong and the landscape was beginning to emerge - which is a good thing given that rooks begin to nest with an eye on their eggs hatching as the trees come into leaf (for a little protection for the young) while the ground is still moist but warming up nicely thus provisioning more invertebrates for the hungry chicks. 

Those chicks stay in the nest for about 30 days. Interestingly at the beginning of their life the male is the only provider of food, the female remains on the nest only getting involved once the chicks are around two weeks of age. It is all a little taxing for the adults as they can exhibit asynchronous hatching, in other words the eggs laid can be delayed somewhat and hatch at different times. This can mean that from the first egg hatching to the final fledging from the nest can take six or seven weeks. Exhausting for the adults who don't themselves feed well at this time and often lose a good percentage of their body condition. That's why this time of the year and into early summer the weather is important. A hot dry spring with baked earth is not good for rooks as the young fledge, or any other ground feeder for that matter. Hopefully then 2023 will be a good year if this cycle of damp wet days continues as the days lengthen. But I digress, the real issue as I walked the lane was to count the nests.

I'd noticed while driving through the village that a number of new nests had appeared since my last visit. The three which were formerly at the pond corner, now numbered six - three in one tree, two in another and a singleton, though I'm not sure that the lone nest on the far left is active.  Possibly a dummy run nest which is common. 

The three nests on the right, and below were very much active which is good to see given the extensive tree work that happened here in January to open up the dew-pond, which is beginning to come to life after the dredging and chopping back. 

Standing guard in the warm sunlight above.

A single new nest has also appeared in trees by the old school building. This line of trees was once the main hub for the rookery in the village, then around ten years ago they stopped coming here. Disturbance probably, there's a resident herring gull pair here now, but for whatever reason they're back this year, or at least one nest is.

However more worrying is that the nests which were occupied in early March at this location above have disappeared. Did they naturally go or, as I hope has not happened, have they been removed? This location was where nests had remained from last season, and I noticed there is a ladder against one of the trees, trees which border a Farmstay touring caravan site which has recently changed hands. I'm going to be generous and say the rooks have literally 'upped sticks' and moved across the road, as there has been a more than doubling of nests here since my last visit.

On that last visit there were twelve nests in a single tree. On this latest visit that tree had nineteen nests. The trees either side of that had five and four nests respectively.  That's twenty eight nests. Which is not unsurprising as when doing a rough bird count on my last visit there were as many non-nesters as nesters based on the birds present and who flew off when I approached. Those non-nesters have presumably then caught up with delayed nesting activity. 

It was while taking these images that a family, with dog in tow, emerged from the caravan touring site and asked what I was doing. Newly arrived here for their Easter holidays they were interested to know I kept an eye on the rooks in the village. As like the rook I'm a resident myself, I forget sometimes I live in a tourist area.

Hard to count all of the nineteen nests in this image so one of a single bird and nest then.

It does make me wonder why this tree below has always been a favourite for the rook. It isn't particularly tall, not in a favourable location (to us humans) being right next to the road and a house, but the rook love it. They nest here every year and roost here in the winter. What that does show however is that an inconspicuous looking tree if  it were to be felled, could have catastrophic effect on this rook population. And that is always a risk of management taking place without local knowledge. This tree is not just a tree, it hosts a community. 

It was all looking promising then, six (or 5) nests by the pond, one nest by the old school, and twenty eight by the village, 35 nests, that is a minimum of seventy rook plus associated non-breeders. However all was not finished yet. Retracing my steps back home after a lovely forty five minutes bobbling about watching the rooks I noticed back at the farm by the River Banwell that there were some more nests. I'd not noticed these on the way out as they were behind me. These nests are around a quarter of a mile from the main site in the village, in trees by the farm buildings.

There is often winter activity here but I can't recall seeing nests, or maybe never noticed them. The question then in my mind is  - are these birds from the same social group as those in the village simply finding more suitable trees to nest in. Or given these nests are somewhat separate are these a social outlier, maybe newly paired birds beginning a new rookery some distance off from the main rookery, albeit of only three nests. I can't get any closer to these nests from the lane but may have a wander over there soon if I'm allowed by Roger the farmer.

So the count - where have I got to on the 2nd of April with the rooks of Wick St Lawrence?

6 x nests by pond (or 5 if one is inactive)

1 x nest by old school

28 x nests in the village itself

3 x nests by the farm a quarter of a mile distant

I make that thirty eight nests in the village, making the population here at least 76 individuals. Which is even higher than I'd got to during my last visit in mid March, then by estimating breeding and non breeding individuals I'd got to around sixty birds.

I'll leave the rooks of Wick St Lawrence alone now for the season, as I'm pretty sure the number of nests won't increase now. That's a good total of nests for the area, as while rook are not in serious threat nationally they are in a slow decline, like much of lowland farmland birdlife is. We need to let nature have a few raggedly and unkept places to live in - and spill a little more grain at harvest - and leave those trees standing. But that is for another day, especially if it stays warm, with a little rain, but mainly sunny in this corner of the West Country.