The poem a day prompt was 'detail' so I thought but not for long...Distinguishing rooks from crows is easy - unless they happen to be flying. And since my BTO tetrad is inhabited by corvids, corvids and corvids, I need to get my eyes & head round these flapping flocks.
EDGES
It's easy to distinguish when they're landed:
the domed head, shabby look, bald-beaked rook,
the crow altogether a tighter, neater bird.
But what when they're in flight?
The flocks are rooks; the solitary, crows-
but that's not always so.
Sometimes you can still make out the peaked head of the rook,
or you can focus on their tails:
roundness indicates a rook,
straight edged is a crow.
Their calls, too, echo their sharpness:
relaxed caws from rooks,
harsh grating from crows.
Toady's photos used by kind permission of Mike Atkinson. Check out the link from this page.
2 comments:
I like this poem Carol.
It used to be that crows are solitary and rooks congregate but I understand that this is not always so these days.
Rooks are my favourite bird so I really enjoyed your poem and the photograph.
Thanks Weaver. I expect that living in the middle of the countryside you're a corvid expert.
It's interesting how wildlife changes habits. Goldfinch come into gardens all the time now, and ground feeding robins have learnt to use seed and nut feeders. Where there's a need, there's a way...
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