A naturalist's pursuit of rooks and jackdaws.
When nature writer Mark Cocker moves to his new home in Norfolk, he witnesses a spectacular display of a large group of crows going to roost. It is a life-changing event: suddenly he has the crow bug.
This book describes six years' worth of rooking throughout the UK, with brief excusions to mainland Europe. Read it, and you will never think of crows as boring again: you will see them in a totally new light. This is nature writing at its best.
True, some of Cocker's theorising about his beloved rooks occasionally borders on the fanciful, but don't let that put you off. This is a lovely book that belongs on the shelf next to the books of Cocker's friend and one-time co-author, Richard Mabey. It reminded me a lot of Mabey's Nature Cure.
I can't give much higher praise than that.
“…wonderful. Science and history and geography and evolution and culture all tangled up in musings while walking about the moors around Hebden Bridge.”—PZ Myers
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