When Rooks Start Housekeeping 



AT the end of February and early in March the rooks 

 return to their nest-trees, and begin to rebuild their 

 leaky cradles with much excited clamouring and 

 cawing, plundering and marauding. 



The nest-trees may have been deserted since the 

 summer before. Rooks like to nest high, and in winter 

 when trees are leafless the exposed nests would be 

 draughty roosting-places. So they go into winter 

 roosting-quarters, several rookeries often joining forces, 

 occasionally perhaps every day paying visits to the 

 real home. 



Early in the following year many gallant young 

 rooks anticipate the spring, little thinking of what 

 trials housekeeping will bring, and what they will 

 suffer from the cunning old freebooters who will steal 

 their collection of sticks. Some of the young male 

 birds may not find sweethearts, for all their gallant 

 wooing and eloquent cawing. These disappointed 

 lovers may then go into bachelor quarters apart, 

 a rollicking, happy-go-lucky crew. 



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