| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| tahir |
CrowsWe're being overrun this year, hundreds of em, all over the farm, they've been ripping bits out of the fruit trees and generally just taken over. On a sunny morning we wake to the sight of 100s of em sunning themselves in the field around the house. Field next door is where the rookery is, is there any sensible control to stop them damaging the fruit/fruit trees? I've been told they'll be a terrible pest on the nut trees when they start fruiting. |
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| Jamanda |
One of those annoying banger things?
Employ a small boy to run around chasing them off? They'll be rooks not crows. Crows don't hang round in big groups. |
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| tahir |
Oh yeah, that'll be why it's a rookery won't it? 
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| tahir |
Yeah, but they are annoying, and I've no idea how effective they are, anyone know? |
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| Jamanda |
I think the do get used to them after a while, so you can only use them at the most crucial times. Or you could get BB to come and stay for a day or two - that'd fettle 'em. | ||||
| Bernie66 |
Eat them. Rook pie is quite good. | ||||
| Brownbear |
Yes, if they're a stable population the bast way to deal with them is a shotgun. If they were roosting in one or two trees which you're not that fond of, I'd suggest felling them, but as they have a happy home nearby then you're stuck with shooting or toleration.
You can get a gas-gun that makes periodic bangs, but they get used to that after about a fortnight. They're too clever to fall for most scaring tactics. I'd suggest you got either a nice little over-and-under, or perhaps treated yourself to a Firearms Certificate and got a high-capacity pump or semi-auto shotgun (giving 'control of serious avian infestation' as your 'reason to possess') like the Benelli M4. |
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| tahir |
I guessed you'd suggest the kill 'em route, and I did suspect the bang deterrent wouldn't work for long. Neither the missus or I have the time to be learning to use a firearm at the mo.
Guess we'll have to tolerate till we get some time. |
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| resistance is fertile |
Where is the Rookery in relation to your land?
I would think a bit of an onslaught and a few strung up would help, maybe an armed mini meet |
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| tahir |
The field is next door to us, it borders 2 of our fields, the one where the house is and the orchard field. | ||||
| Brownbear |
Could you not find someone locally to take on the task? Perhaps swap pigeon rights for crow removal. You don't want a nutter, so I'd suggest contacting the gamekeeper of a local shoot and asking him to recommend some enthusiastic but responsible person. |
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| tahir |
I've tried and tried to get someone, they a ll turn up and say oh yeah we'll be visiting at least weekly but they never do. The last fella (a farmers son) was actually v good, got 5 bunnies in an hour, but we haven't seen him for weeks. |
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| Cathryn |
Shoot one, spread it out on it'sback with wings wide and beak open. They don't like that. (What a surprise  )
Or if you cannot stomach that, shoot one and hang it up on one of the trees you want to protect, anywhere it's obvious and he doesn't want rooks. They are intelligent birds and should get the message. Good morning by the way... 
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| Treacodactyl |
Yep, "a crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow". (Crows have black beaks, rooks much paler, white almost.) How much damage will the do when the trees are mature? We have a large native cherry tree and corvids always visit it to get nesting material, often snapping off quite big twigs and carrying them away. When I thought about it I realised they might actually be doing the tree a favour and the tree hasn't noticeably suffered. Rooks also eat a wide range of pests from your grass so what damage they do might be off-set to what good they do. If you want to control them, along with your rabbits and tree rats, it does seem like you need to try and find a local, responsible, shooter. |
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| tahir |
No problem stomaching it, haven't got a dead rook handy to do it too. Good morning to you too. |
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| tahir |
Yeah, tree rats, haven't even started on that subject. I guess we'll need to get tooled up if we get serious about this orchard business. They'll be after my apricots apparently, they discard the flesh and make of with the stone 
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| Cathryn |
Yes sorry, slow posting so hadn't read the shooting problem part. | ||||
| Jamanda |
From what I gather everyone's after your apricots Tahir. | ||||
| tahir |
I thought that was me plums? |
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| yummersetter |
won't it get better when the nesting/rearing season is over? I've got a rookery at the side of the orchard, not far from the bedroom window and I find their social behaviour interesting. They've never obviously done any damage to my fruit trees but they do pick up a lot of things from the grass - the only time I get cross with them is when they poop on the windows, but I guess that's random, not deliberate. | ||||
| yummersetter |
and it's badgers that go for my peaches/apricots, they can climb about four foot up the fan trained trees | ||||
| tahir |
I guess it must be gathering nesting materials but they;ve been ripping of leaves/small twigs quite a lot. | ||||
| Bebo |
They are nesting at the moment in our area. They are a complete pain in the provebial eating the chicken feed and stealing eggs. We've got a dead one hanging up next to the henhouse and it worked for a couple of weeks, but they just ignore it now. Maybe its time for a fresh one! | ||||
| Tavascarow |
Traditionally at nesting time they used to knock the eggs & chicks from the nests with long poles (or a load of shot).
I know the corvids are still classed as vermin (apart from ravens & choughs) but I wouldn't recommend that method now. I'm suprised they are still gathering nesting material as rooks are about the first birds to nest. Here they start in early March. |
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| Brownbear |
They can be beneficial birds, only worth culling them if they're doing specific damage. Some people seem to shoot them just because they're there, rather in the way that some farmers will go out of their way to shoot foxes even though they don't keep poultry or lambs, and their main problem is rabbit damage.
I often find myself in the professionally unhelpful position of advising people not to kill things. |
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| alibibbby |
I amcurrently skulking by upstairs window trying to ambush only one dratted magpie, and that is more than enough. problem is it is eating as many of my eggs as it can get to before em, so i have decided to spend an hour just witing with an air rifl .e. tro  uble is it is very twitchy
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| Brownbear |
Cover your face with some netting or a gimp mask or something. They can see the shiny disc of a human face from a huge distance off, and know that people looking at them spells Trouble. |
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| tahir |
It would have been a few weeks ago that they were doing that, about the time that the fruit trees were in blossom. I guess most of the damage is done now, but they must keep their eyes on the trees to know when to pick the nuts. |
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| bodger |
The joys of living in the countryside eh ?
I love the sound of rooks and look upon their call as being one of the quintessential sounds of the English countryside but then I havent got hoardes of them ripping the crap out of my orchard. 
The only answer that I know of is the gun and hours of time. 
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| yummersetter |
The rooks by us seriously dropped in numbers when the squirrels came in force, about five years back - I think maybe the squirrels were raiding the rook's nests. Now there's always a few sentinel birds keeping watch when the parents are off getting food, and the squirrels have declined so I wonder if they're getting their revenge on the drays.
I've never seen them near the chestnuts, but the remaining squirrels are pretty efficient there. Bonios however, aren't safe - the younger dog will horde his morning biscuit and sit with it in front of his feet in the orchard to tantalise the greedier older one, but sooner or later he'll forget and wander off, at which point a rook will invariably swoop down and get it. Although he tries, there's very little point in chasing a bird that's heading for a nest fifty foot up, even if it is aerodynamically stressed - I'd like to see the scene when they try and ram a Bonio down the throat of of a rooklet, though. |
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| dpack |
only on downsizer
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| dpack |
recon rooks are ok unless they learn to be a problem
brain the size of a peanut ,very clever
worth checking any wind dropped nests for shiny things 
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| Treacodactyl |
Whatever you do, don't leave any tools laying around....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8062007.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8062106.stm |
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| BahamaMama |
Amazing birds! although they are not eating my fruit and veg. I have noticed many more in my suburban garden this year. | ||||
| yummersetter |
I'm testing their long-term powers right now - I had two rhubarbs to plant out of their pots - they both had a bucket of well-aged horse manure dug into the soil, but one of them also has corpse of rooklet underneath.
Whilst transporting him to his grave in my best wheelbarrow I was amazed at his feather colour, not black at all but iridescent navy/prussian blue. No idea how he died, but there's a lane between the rookery and orchard, and his siblings are having great fun doing aerial acrobatics there so he may have misjudged the height of the local bus 
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