Rooks and Hay Travelling about the country last week and
covering something well over a thousand miles by train in four days, I was struck with the frequency with which I passed fields where rooks and pigeons were feeding on freshly cut hay. When grass is newly cut down a great feast of insects is exposed. Some of these are useful insects, but a number are enemies of the farmer in one form or another. The rooks love the fresh hay more than its stubble and the pigeons arc almost as fond of it, but for some reason the smaller birds, the starlings and others that are insectivorous, keep away. I have not been able to think of a reason, unless the rook and pigeon have more catholic tastes and the insects of the long grass are less attractive to the smaller birds than those they pick up on the pasture. With very good glasses one might see what special delicacy the rooks find. I have a feeling that they take a large number of spiders as well as bugs and moths. The only way of being sure would be to examine the crops of the birds, having shot one or two, and this would be a pity, at least when they are so plainly feeding on insects.
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