Bravura 'deep history' nature writing

[s1m0n]

I'm reading Mark Cocker's Crow Country, a book about his obsession, rooks, as well as the other other british corvids. However, I'm moved to post the following passage cuz of the effortless swath he cuts through time and distance from the far asian steppes to his own beloved Norfolk. Good nature writing should do this.

The rook's adaptation to feed in open grassland habitats free of the choking cover of trees means that, like myself, the species is almost certainly an incomer to the Yare valley [Norfolk, UK]. Their original home was probably somewhere on the open plains of Eurasia, and rooks are still more Asian than European in their distribution. They occupy vast swathes of the Mongolian and Manchurian grasslands, right to the outskirts of Beijing and the shores of the Yellow Sea. To the west they've conquored the immense oceanic expanses of Russian and Asian grassland from about 160° E to a point half a world away on the Baltic coast.

[...]

As a consequence of their origins, rooks inhabit for me a secondary but similarly vast imaginative space. They open those dark eloquent wings like a great story book, conjuring the steppe landscapes and human hordes trekking forever westwards - the Cimmerians, the Scythians, Samatians, Alans, Huns, Magyars, Bulgars and Mongols. Mingled with the rolling craa notes is the sounds is the sound of horsemen with their stocky short-legged ponies straining against the chafe of leather on sweat. Somewhere in the the dark-brown iris of a rook is the faintest trace of its ancient journey out of inner asia.

In Western Europe the unbroken wildwood of the early Holocene, which developed in the retreat of the last ice sheets, would have been an inpenetrable thicket to an invading bird of the open landscape. Rooks were dependent upon the westward spread of stock grazing and cereal agriculture from their original middle Eastern settings to make their own entry into Europe. So when you next pass a rookery remember to stop and listen. Among thespring-summoning cacophony you'll hear the faintest echo of a Neolithic axe.

~from Mark Cocker, Crow Country

[dwest]

I'm just sorry rook shooting has declined so much, my grandfather's rook rifle hardly ever gets used anymore, no more brancher pies. Oh well, at least all the barley for beer is being protected by the organo-phosphates that are killing the little buggers. Of course I haven't seen a rook in the states in decades. Really more of a daws man myself.

[HDSarah]

A "rook" is what we in North America would call a "raven," right? It's solid black like a crow, but is larger and smarter than a crow.

If I'm right about what you mean, then we have LOTS of rooks where I live. I think it would be nearly impossible to get through a whole day without seeing or at least hearing one. They are one of the handful of bird species that are year-round residents here in interior Alaska. We get lots of migrant bird species that pass through here in spring and fall, the most numerous being geese (mostly Canada geese) and sandhill cranes.

In a previous job, my office was on the top floor of a building that the ravens/rooks used for rest breaks during their courting behavior in late winter. They would fly around right outside my window, looking like they were going to come straight in the window, and at the last minute swoop upward and land on the roof above me. I enjoyed watching them.

[s1m0n]

Rooks and Ravens aren't the same thing. The closest rooks to you are across the water in Siberia, although that's a different subspecies from the one he's writing about. You might see the odd stray.

The UK has both but they're very different birds. Their raven is the same species as ours, and is a bigger bird - about 150% of the size of a rook. Rooks are a strictly old-world bird.

More or less in scale:


Local parts of NA might have applied the name to their local crow population. Crows are our most rooklike species but they're a great deal less social. Rooks are like Quebecers: they do everything en masse.

[hans]

and then there are the corbies....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDRusm23 ... re=related

And thanks, Simon, I will look out this book!

[dwest]

Rooks are like Quebecers: they do everything en masse.

Years ago I watched an Oxford film about rook populations in England. The film followed a "study" that was trying to find out why rook populations seemed to have very little fluctuation. A group of gunners went in and basically annihilated most of a colony, an easy thing to do because of their social nature, then they evaluated the colony the following season when it appeared there was no change in colony size. Really great science.

Growing up a friend of mine shot a crow one day, his grandmother being a sensible woman who didn't care for killing just for killings sake made him prepare and eat the bird. He became a good field biologist who hasn't shot a crow since.

[devondancer]

I love that book, Simon. Thank you for reminding me that I must re-read it. We have many rookeries here and I have watched the rooks with far more enjoyment since reading it the first time.

[mutepointe]

Growing up a friend of mine shot a crow one day, his grandmother being a sensible woman who didn't care for killing just for killings sake made him prepare and eat the bird. He became a good field biologist who hasn't shot a crow since.

Yeah for Grandma!

[brianholton]

You'll also enjoy "Corvus" by Esther Woolfson. She has lived with various corvids, including a magpie called Spike, and she writes like an angel.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corvus-Life-Bir ... 1847080294
b

[s1m0n]

You'll also enjoy "Corvus" by Esther Woolfson. She has lived with various corvids, including a magpie called Spike, and she writes like an angel.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corvus-Life-Bir ... 1847080294
b

Thanks you - I'll keep an eye out for it.

[dwest]

You'll also enjoy "Corvus" by Esther Woolfson. She has lived with various corvids, including a magpie called Spike, and she writes like an angel.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corvus-Life-Bir ... 1847080294
b

Thanks you - I'll keep an eye out for it.

If ya find it give us all a caw.

[Nanohedron]

[dwest]

Multiple sets of eyes have a higher degree of success.

[Nanohedron]