An old saying often used to guide newcomers to birding is "A rook on his own is a Crow, a Crow in a crowd is a Rook" Of course as with anything in the natural world, there are often exceptions, but generally this holds true.
For birders with any experience of course, there is no difficulty separating the two, but what about the birds themselves?
This year in Sutton, the Rookery has definitely increased in size with the nest count likely to top 100, but among the raucous clamour, there is a persistent 3 or 4 note call, yes, a Carrion Crow seems to have decided to become a member of the family, and he is very determined, been here with the same pair of Rooks (who are not best pleased) since February. Every now and then they try and see him off, and on one occasion it developed into a right old scrap, but the Crow had the upper hand (Beak?) and so won his seat.
We have over the years had some odd occurances at the rookery, it was displaced by Ravens from an earlier location, the chicks were predated on for about 3 years by an opportunistic Buzzard and later again by a Raven, the Crow who would be a Rook is just the latest episode in the drama.
I thought it was unusual enough to make a post about though.