Rookery Rooks Homepages : merlintherook.webs.com

Well, Inkpen has flown away! He got out when the window was open, flew into some trees. 

He stayed around the house for a couple of days, cawing but, as per normal, not deigning to come out of the trees he was cawing at us from! Then he just went, possibly with a small group of Jackdaws.

The rooks arent in the rookery at present, but some of them visit daily, they are away probably at a parliament nearby so that will be where he's gone. He's very lucky, being hardly accustomed to humans at all he has got the best return to nature he could have got, he was really more Reigny's rook than he was ours!

Reigny is still with us, she is still Jo's little girl and doing very well.

And we have a new arrival called Mystic Crow!

Poor thing, Jo found him in the wood and he was in shock and all his chest feathers had been plucked, we think by a sparrowhawk!

He looks very sorry for himself but he perches and feeds very well, he's got very strong claws and beak, being a crow. He hasnt found his voice yet but I'm sure he will one day soon. The name was inspired by the Valkyrie Mist who was an aspect of morgan le fay in the arthurian legend; story here - Valkyrie Mist

Mum is off to kings lynn this morning to meet Em from Lincs. rook rescue who has a tiny rook that needs looking after so there's another new arrival on the way!

Maybe Merlin

In mid April a pair of rooks started trying to build a nest, needless to say all the other nests were already filled with nestlings!

Their site of choice was not the best being at the very top of a poplar tree above the other nests in that particular clump of trees, and daily their twigs were either blown away or removed by other birds, who were quite hostile.

Eventually they put in a magnificent effort with both birds fetching twigs all day, until by the evening the hen bird was able to sit in the nest.

Could this be Merlin and partner?

As he only left on March 17 he would not have had the opportunity for the long courtship I have read rooks and jackdaws normally have, which would explain the late building. Prior to his departure and before all the rooks had returned full time to the rookery I know that he was visited by a solitary rook on several occasions.

Whilst they were building Josh and I went out together and did a lot of calling, one bird left the nest site, and came gradually down to the lowest branches before returning to its mate, the strongest indication we have had that it may be Merlin.

 So far as I could make out, chicks did eventually hatch, as I observed some feeding, but I don't believe they survived, as the feeding became more and more sporadic. The male's efforts at bringing food were probably too irregular, another indication that it could be Merlin as he would probably find it quite a challenge to collect enough to feed a family. Hopefully they'll have better luck next year!

Reigny & Inkpen

"New rooks raised with silver spoon!"

Reigny came to us on 11th May and Inkpen,

 on the 24th of May. Reigny is named after the village of Newton Reigny in the lake district which is on the site of the famous caledonian forest which has now dissapeared. This is where Merlin fled to in his last days of madness, you can read the story here The Madness of King Merlin . And Inkpen is named after the village of Inkpen which has Arthurian connexions, more (scant) info at InkpenVillage . 

They have become the best of friends and do everything together.

They love their capacious new cage, known as "Corvid Towers", and if anything happens to frighten them, they rush to go back in, or hide underneath it!

They can now both help themselves to food in their bowl, but still clamour for spoon feeding with the tiny silver coffee spoon they have come to love so much!

Happy Rook Sunday everyone!

Since Greenwing we have had two more Branchies, one died last night, it was very very small and wouldnt feed and could not perch.

Another, has been with us since tuesday and is looking ok, altho' it won't gape for food yet so food is still having to be put in its mouth, it seems to be perching and preening ok tho.

Despite all our best efforts at rehabilitation, regret to say that Greenwing died in the night.

His caws had become more and more feeble, We were treating him for a condition called splay leg which you can find out more about in the forums, but we think there was some underlying illness as well as he just got weaker and finally just slipped away, could have been pneumonia.

Very sad. I suppose this is one of the hardest things about rescueing baby birds that you are always going to lose some of them no matter what you do.

Special thanks to those who gave advice, Michelle, M & in particular Ari.

Hello All and a special welcome to Greenwing, I'm sure he will have you all wrapped around his tatty wing in no time!!!!

Well, I'm in a major grump to be perfectly honest, my human has been spending pretty much all her time outside with those pesky ponies and I've hardly had any of her attention at all!!!!!! She really should have it sussed by now that I am the most important creature here, I'm beginning to think She must be a bit dim!

Apparently 3 of her precious ponies have had babies in the past few weeks, one a month ago and the other two in the last fortnight. She waffles on about them all the time and it's getting very boring indeed! She wonders by the way if Jo would like to see photos of them?

I here from my human that you have a new baby to look after, the Rooks down with you must be a lot further on in their breediing than my family is up here, the ones here didn't start building their nests until about 3 weeks after the Rooks with you so we have a little while to wait before we see any starting to venture from their nests.

She is still very puzzled as to how I ended up in her field as the Rooks from my Rookery don't travel in this direction, She says that She never sees Rooks on her ground only the very occasional Raven and lots of Hooded Crows of which there seem to have been hoards of recently, they follow behind her picking up all the brushed out winter hair from the ponies and fly off with it. I haven't told her that I came this way 'cause I know She's a sucker for a hard luck story and I knew She would take me in!!!!!!!!!

I'm really quite happy here, I have loads of toys to play with which I love to hide under the paper in the bottom of my cage so She can never find them all!!!! Keeps her busy you know, She mutters about thinking She had finished with tidying up toys when her brood grew up.

She keeps trying to convince me that it is safe for me to come out of my cage and wander about the living room but it seems a bit risky to me. What if that pesky cat has hidden behind the sofa?????? No thank you, I'm more than happy to stay in my safe cage and make rude noises at the other animals, that's good fun!! She does make me come out 'though cause She says She needs to clean out my cage properly, I don't know why as I like it just the way it is, humans are such fussy creatures!!!!!!

My wing is a lot better now and I can use it much more for balance and generally flap about.  There is now a hole right through the second joint of that wing, sounds bad but actually it is beautifully healed and doesn't cause me any pain at all now. She reckons there must have been a pellet stuck in there from when I got shot and it finally worked it's way out (I pecked it out but we won't tell her that!). The whole is about 1/2cm across and the inside edges of it are perfectly healed so it probably won't grow over now but She says that it means I won't have to go to the vet and so I get to keep my wing, I'm most relieved about that!!!!!!!

There's a lot of racket outside these past few weeks, I can hear the Hoodies squawking most of the day and there is a cuckoo who shouts from the garden wall for hours, boy does he get irritating after a while!!!!!! While all these critters outside are making so much noise I feel it is only fair that I should join in too so I make a fair bit of noise myself, usually if She has gone out of the room and left me yet again!!!!! She says I sound realy funny 'cause I sound like I'm muttering and grumbling under my breath, I say it's just as well She can't undersand what I'm saying as She might not like it!!!!!!!!

She was just telling me this morning that She's wondering what waifs and strays will end up here this year to add to me and the hedgehog, none I hope as I reckon I have to share her too much already.

 Well I better sign off now and go and do something destructive, take care and love to you all.

Hi Mandy here, thought I might get a little word in myself this time.

Magic is such a delight to have and we all love him dearly. At the moment he is looking pretty scruffy as he is loosing his face feathers and his tail feathers still haven't grown back yet, but he is lovely and glossy and watches everything that goes on in the house. He still doesn't like to come out of his cage much but as he seems really content I don't insist unless I have to clean him out properly. His wing is much more flexible now but because of the hole there will always be feathers missing from there and the joint itself is damaged so he doesn't have full movement but enough to keep him stable. He is still nowhere near as big as Merlin, I don't think he is an awful lot bigger than a Jackdaw.

I've been so busy recently tht I haven't had so much time to spend with him during the day but he seems to be coping perfectly well with me popping in and out. He still gets pretty flustered if there are visitors in the house and I have to stand with my hand in the cage for him to sit on until he decideds it's safe, I still get a big buzz from this wild bird choosing to sit on my hand!

The rookery in the village is pretty noisy as I imagine most of the young are hatched and demading to be fed but I don't get down to the village often these days so I'm missing most of the action, hopefully if any young ones need assistance someone will think to take them up here.

Mum told me she had seen the 2 white ones again the other week but as yet hasn't been able to get photos of them, I'l keep reminding her to try and get some pics if at all possible.

Well must go and see to all the critters, that's a days work by itself!!!!!!

Take care, lots of love Mandy

We have a new Rookling!

It's called Greenwing as it was found on mayday eve, the day of the green man, and also because Merlin the rook, in Deepak Chopra's book The Return of Merlin is referred to as "Whitewing" when he becomes independant of the colony, so Greenwing is also a sign of independance.

It is a lovely little thing! Very, very tatty wings! It's very large, Jo thinks it must have been the largest of the litter and all the rest were jealous of it so they pushed it out of the nest!

Now we've got another terror to look after I'm sort of hoping we dont get too many more!!

I imagine it must be quite strange for Merlin too, if he's got a nest full of these things somewhere, it must be amazing for him!

Josh

Well, Merlin does seem to be well and truly gone, I'm missing him every time I hear rooks, especially rooks at mum and dads rookery because they sound so much exactly like him, in fact one of them might even BE him. We just have to hope he's doing ok in his new life, whatever it is.

Rook sunday is on it's way and we don't know how many branchies are going to need our help yet but there's bound to be a few at least.

Having Merlin has been a very intense learning experience for us and we now know a lot more about rook kind and living with rooks than we ever thought we would, it will help with any rooks we have to care for in the future.

Of course none of the rooks we have in the future will be quite like Merlin, he was special, but there is still that slim hope that we may see him again soon to hang on to.

Josh

Merlin has gone.

He hasnt been in the house the last 2 nights and hasnt been seen or heard from.

As he has never slept outside the house and we arent sure if he can even feed himself it looks like we will never see him again.

He was a lovely rook, we will miss him.

Bye bye Merlin.

Josh

I think Josh's entry about Merlin's departure was a little on thenegative side. He can feed himself, I saw him selecting insects fromamongst moss on the roof tiles just the other day, and now the frostsare over there is no reason why he shouldn't survive a night outdoors.He has recently spent time away from the farm on about three or fouroccasions and been missing for up to four hours. Before the rooksreturned en masse to the rookery, he was visited on several occasionsby a lone rook, who at the time he seemed to take little interest in.As time has gone on and the frantic romantics amongst the trees havebecome increasingly desperate, I believe his hormones have finallytaken over and he has gone off to do what rooks do! We can only hopethat one day he will return, even if only on a passing visit. Jo .

Right, Ok, if you say so Mum, I'm a little more inclined to think that we will never see him again, especially if he hasnt even popped in for cheese or egg in five days! Josh.

I feel certain Merlin has gone to find a mate and this was always the risk we took in letting him fly free, but I feel it was the right thing to do in his case.  I am at present preparing for any babies that may need help this year, particularly as we now have access to the foot of many more of the rookery trees. Jo

Thanks everyone for the sympathetic messages on FB. See "Merlin AWOL" in forums for a proper farewell note. Josh

Hi All, Magic here. Sorry I haven't been in touch recently but I've been quite busy since Christmas. Hope all you corvid friends out there are well and happy.

Well the first thing that happened after christmas was that I got evicted from the sitting room!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can imagine I was not best pleased to start with, Firstly that big scary human caught me and put me in a really small cage and carted me off to her craftroom, She knows how much I hated being caught but She still did it, She's really quite bossy you know!!!!

I spent 5 or 6 weeks on my own in the craft room but it wasn't so bad in the end, I really quite enjoyed it. The only human I saw was Her, She spent a lot of time in there with me. At first She completely ignored me except to feed me and clean out my cage but after a week She would leave the cage door open when She was working at her desk, it always looked like fun, lots of paper and shiny things but She didn't let me have a go. Then She took to leaving the cage open all day even when She wasn't in the room with me so I got to go exploring, She was very carefully to always make sure the door was locked so that darned cat never got in.

I really can't understand why She insists on keeping such an animal! It obviously doesn't do it's job properly because I had to share the craftroom with some mice who kept pinching my food!!!!!

After being there for a while She got a bit mean and stopped leaving my food out all day for me and started to take it away when She wasn't in the room so that if I wanted something to eat I had to take it from Her hand but you know what? It wasn't nearly as scary as I first thought, She is really not so bad after all. She always puts a nice dark glove on when She is feeding me or cleaning out my cage or just having a chat so that I don't have to see the really scary hand, I hate hands!!!!!!!! I really like perching on the glove now, I get a great view from there and She usually gives me a nice treat when I do, a piece of cheese or a bit of party ring biscuit, they're my absolute favourite, I would do just about anything for one of those!

Now I am back in my big cage in the sitting room I'm pleased to say (apart from having to see the cat) and I'm a much happier and calmer bird now, I have even decided to make a bit more noise now and chatter away to myself, She says it sounds like I'm being throttled but I think She sounds wierd too. I like my big cage better now and spend my time between the floor picking up the toys I drop (deliberately) and the perches, I also have a nice platform that I like to stand on (She says it's a cat scratching post) and watch the world from. She puts my food dish on the floor now so I love to scatter as much as I can all over the floor just so I can watch Her tidy it up!!

I can hear that the outside crows are back, She tells me that the hooded crows are back in the fields making a racket and squabbling amonst themselves and She also says that the Rooks are back in force in the village making their nests now that spring is here. Spring?????? I don't think so! There is still a lot of snow outside here and it's still pretty cold, apparently She and her hubby had to dig out some of Her ponies last week because the snow had drifted so high round them that they were stuck! Makes me glad I get to live inside, She still mutters about building me an outdoor aviary for the summer but I think I'm quite comfortable where I am thank you.

There has been no more word about my damaged wing being removed, thank goodness, I really don't fancy that, I'm actually using it a lot more now and it's not as stiff as it was but I still don't think it will ever let me fly, still, I'd rather have it as it is than have it removed. My tail feathers are a bit of a mess just now but She says they will look a lot better after I've moulted, my other feathers are all nice and shiny except on the damaged bit of my wing, the feathers only grow a little bit there and then they fall out again, still that means fewer feathers to clean everyday! She is a bit confused, She says I should have lost most of my face feathers by now and I haven't really lost any, She reckons I may be the runt of my clutch as I'm still not as big as the other Rooks and it's probably better in the long run that I have come to live with Her as I may have got picked on by the other Rooks.

Well I think that's all the news I have for now, I'll write again soon with a spring update, apparently the hedgehog should be waking up soon She says so I'll have to share the food again, we'll see about that!

Take care everyone, best wishes from Magic. xx

We have heard alot from Poet recently, it seems at least two or three times a week now a lone jackdaw will call to us from the rookery persistently, and of course there's only one person it could be.

Yesterday he was calling to us when we were outside and then I came inside and sat on the computer and I'm sure I saw him land on the chimney pot in the back yard, I was about to take a photo of him, but as soon as he had landed merlin jumped up there and chased him away.

He seems to call to merlin as much as he does me and mum when he is around, merlin does seem to answer him but it doesnt seem to be in very polite terms!!

Merlin has been more irritating than usual of late, he recently had a phase of not going into the cage for lunch and he had to be chased in there with the broom every day, he seems to be getting over it now, the snow didnt help as he had the added excuse that the front garden outside his cage "looked wrong" and it wasnt supposed to be like that!

Birds are very sensetive to these things, especially stroppy teenaged birds!!!

Josh