It was an annual tradition in our part of Essex to shoot young rooks on the first Saturday of May. We shot the young rooks with 22s as they perched outside the nests. It was challenging shooting as they usually nested in a rookery, social birds these, in very tall horse chestnut trees, the big leaves were coming out and it was hard to see them. One day we were joined by some village youths armed with catapults and glass marbles and they were knocking off young rooks from the branches of the quite tall trees, probably 30 to 40 feet up. It was an amazing feat of marksmanship I have never forgotten. We did not eat them ourselves, but gave them to those who liked eating young rooks
Mike
