Rook
Bird
Collective name: a parliament · also: a building, a clamour
The rook is a sociable, glossy-black member of the crow family, known for the bare greyish skin around its beak and its shaggy leg feathers. Rooks live together in noisy treetop colonies called rookeries and feed mostly in fields, probing the soil for worms and grubs.
💡 Fun Facts
- Rooks are very sociable and nest together in noisy treetop colonies called rookeries, where dozens of twiggy nests crowd the bare branches — a gathering so lively that one name for a group of rooks is a parliament.
- You can tell a rook from a carrion crow by its face: a rook has a bare patch of pale, greyish skin around the base of its beak, and shaggy 'trouser' feathers down its legs.
- There's an old country saying to help spot them: a crow on its own is usually a crow, but a crowd of crows is usually rooks — because rooks are the sociable ones that stick together in flocks.
📅 Through the Year
- Breeding:March to May