Just a quick question for Steve Evans re his report of 1500+ corvids at Wynyard Business Park. I was just interested as to where exactly they were roosting.
A couple of days earlier driving home along the A689 about 5.30pm a very large flock of mixed rooks and jackdaws flew overhead between Samsung roundabout and Swart Hole Plantation. There were a few tens of rooks first then three waves of Jackdaws that I made out before I was past. They just kept sweeping over like smoke, I guessed at 400-500 which I thought was impressive enough but from Steve's observation it looks like there would have been a few more behind them.
Ian Bond
Quote from: Ian Bond on February 16, 2009, 08:31:19 PM
Just a quick question for Steve Evans re his report of 1500+ corvids at Wynyard Business Park. I was just interested as to where exactly they were roosting.
A couple of days earlier driving home along the A689 about 5.30pm a very large flock of mixed rooks and jackdaws flew overhead between Samsung roundabout and Swart Hole Plantation. There were a few tens of rooks first then three waves of Jackdaws that I made out before I was past. They just kept sweeping over like smoke, I guessed at 400-500 which I thought was impressive enough but from Steve's observation it looks like there would have been a few more behind them.
Ian Bond
Ian
The birds were circling above, and dropping into Whinny Moor Plantation, north of the A689 at (approx) NZ442270.
They continued to come in (from the South West) after the light had gone & were still doing so as we left.
On a less positive note, i noticed the derelict Woodside Farm has been completely demolished - (although still saw a single Barnie hunting the large acreages of rough grass.)
I wrote to the Local Authority 3 or 4 years ago to bring the BO pair there to their attention, but never received a reply - hopefully they'll have found a tree hole somewhere . . .
( Used to watch a large communal corvid roost 5km West of Durham City with 20,000 - quite a spectacle on a windy November night, especially when someone was trying to "move them on" with a shotgun :o.
This was later studied by Larry Griffin, (now working at Caerlaverock) - he discovered some of the Rooks used to fly long distances (20+km) each day to visit rookeries at Whitburn on the coast & St.Johns Chapel up the dale, feeding along the way and then tracked them back returning each night.
This large roost appears to be disused.
Maybe the birds may have changed tack ??? & now roost in many small roosts rather than the one large one ? )Cheers
SteveE
Hi Steve
Thanks for the additional info.
Shame the birds decided to alight in Stockton but I suspected as much from the direction they were flying. I wonder if this makes Whinny Moor Plantation a Local Wildlife Site based on the percentage of the Cleveland population of Jackdaws???
Also very interested to hear about the barn owl, I take it the single bird was recent. Although Woodside is also in Stockton these things have a habit of flying about (being a birder you probably knew that) so it is likely to cross the rather obscure boundary into Hartlepool at various times and it is always good to know about these things.
Thanks again
Ian