Gentlemen, thanks for your contributions. Drew, that one could well be the book I was looking at.

“If you see one Rook, it’s a Crow. If you see a lot of Crows, they are Rooks”is like most generalisations not totally accurate but closer than many.

The two birds, both Corvids, are vey similar although the Rook has a slimmer beak and in adult birds a bald area around the base of the beak. They are distinct species.

Rooks are gregarious, live in densely packed Rookeries with dozens of nests in a clump of trees. Crows nest in splendid isolation.

About 50 years ago I knew a retired Officer, a veteran of both the Boer and First world wars (and Home Guard in the Second) .

He told me that when stationed in Ireland before WW1, he used to go Rook shooting with a pair of Webley-Fosbury revolvers.

I don’t know what the locals made of the gentle rain of 265 grain bullets falling from the sky, unless they put it down to “the gentlemen down the road having a political discussion “.

At the time I had never heard of Lord Dunsany, I wish I’d asked if they had ever met,

Keep Well,

Parabola

Last edited by Parabola; 05/12/21 02:24 PM. Reason: Typo