Smouldering cigarette ends sought by rooks

I PHOTOGRAPHED this old rook at Barnham railway station while waiting for the train connection to Chichester. It was on the up line to London and just below the crowds on the platform.

I dread to think what it had found for its young, but you can perhaps see the pouch at base of beak is full of something or other. I suppose bits of sandwich, fish and chips, burgers or apple cores are all quickly recycled by these old birds which have learned to exploit the untidiness of humans.

Three or four old birds were around the station doing a bit of a clear-up of the food scraps and they reminded me of the kites that used to keep London streets clear of waste food in Medieval days, or the vultures that used to enjoy a plentiful living in the Canal Zone of Egypt during the British occupation of National Service days.

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The Barnham rook was well aware of approaching trains and rose out of the way to perch on the roof with yards to spare. Within seconds of the train pulling out down it would come again. Chichester used to have the same incumbents though I myself have not seen them lately.

Something very odd that rooks have been known to seek out on railway station rails are cigarette ends. They have been seen to seek especially smouldering fag-ends, and this odd behaviour has often been noted in the past among the crow tribe. Some birds are often parasitised by a fly called the bird parasite (Ornithomya avicularia).

I have, in the autumn, had these little horrors land on me as I have walked through the woods, when they are dispersing into new hosts from nests in hollow trees or even old squirrel dreys on which crows’ nests have been built. They scurry out of sight into one’s collar or hair and are the very devil to winkle out again.

They have flat hard bodies so are well adapted to crouching out of sight and clinging on to their unwilling hosts. Bird ringers will know about these pests and also gamekeepers who might find the flies leaving cooling pheasants or pigeons.

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Birds free themselves in dust baths or by wallowing in nests of red or wood ants’ nests. But then they discovered cigarette ends, and apparently found they were able to dislodge their pests by placing the embers under their wings. Jays, magpies, rooks and crows have also been dusting in the hot ashes around old bonfires.

Whether the Barnham rooks have discovered the trick I don’t know, and perhaps they have lost one of their perks with the ban on smoking in public places.

Richard Williamson