Flights of Rooks and Starlings

Abstract

I MAY be writing of what is so commonly known to naturalists as to be unworthy of record; the facts, however, are new to me. On a fine, still day last September I observed a large flight of rooks attended, as Gilbert White notes, by starlings. As they passed across the sky both rooks and starlings mounted higher and higher until they were lost to sight in the distance. Whatever may have been the occasion of the concourse, it was a subject of much interest to rooks in general, for solitary birds hurried by, cawing loudly, to join the main body. These belated individuals mounted in fairly regular spirals.