Sap Rising

Rook - photograph by Jo Sinclair

It didn't feel right. There wasn't the usual racket of rooks as we rode the horses through the wood. I was thinking it and Jenny said it; both our brains hard-wired to the seasons of a place we have known almost all our lives. Maybe they were off in the fields grubbing about with their trousers and beady eyes, but they should have been primping the old storm-battered colony of nests they return to year after year.

I watched a couple of birds near home. In a frenzy of spring fever one was wrestling in the boughs of a healthy tree, trying to snap off some bendy twigs. With one gale after another all winter long there's plenty of material on the ground, but apparently those won't do. Do they prefer pliable bits and pieces, material they can weave with? Their nests don't look like sophisticated constructions, but they must be piled up quite tightly to survive the high winds we usually get in March. Over the years I've seen a few nests and one or two chicks catapulted out.

A Punch and Judy pair was arguing at the top of a tree over who would add the twig to the nest. One bird was more grabby and gobby than its mate, and got to choose where to stick it.