Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes April 29 2009

In the same way, squab pie helped eke out the cottagers' rations during meat rationing after the war. Squabs were young wood pigeons and these could fairly easily be caught when they were pushed out of their nests by using long poles.

Today it is doubtful if rook shooting for food exists anywhere in the country. Rook shoots are a thing of the past.

Much more likely is that rooks are killed in larsen and other cage traps where they raid the pheasant pens. The dead birds would nowadays be buried or scavenged by kites and even buzzards.

The Sussex rook, once upon a time "farm labourer" because its daily existence depended on working the fields, much like humans, is now not nearly so common, despite the demise of rook pie.

A recent Sussex Bird Report suggests the county total to be somewhere in the region of 1,500 birds. In West Sussex there are rookeries presently occupied at West Dean and in Lavant village.

The highest count was at Compton, with 323 birds. At Pulborough Brooks about 200 were seen, rising to 650 after the breeding season. This may be because the rough meadows nowadays found in the Arun Valley yield a good harvest of crane flies.

Wireworms, the larvae of this big insect, used to be one of the main diet items for the rook, when it did a great deal of good for the farmer.

In my travels, I find that rooks do often depend heavily on their diet on new-sown cereal crops, also cattle or sheep supplementary feed stations and on robbing pheasant feeding points. The diet is catholic however, with birds eating carrion, feeding off rubbish tips, and even taking wild birds' eggs.

As with buzzards, one of the main foods in winter is the common earthworm. It is no longer a pest, though, as was sometimes thought and should always be encouraged.

The sound of rooks cawing in the treetops is as evocative of the English landscape as the sound of church bells. As for rook pie '“ all right if you've really got nothing else to eat.