Mike Langman (RSPB Images)

For the eighth year in a row, we’re organising rook (Corvus frugilegus) monitoring, which is, thanks to your votes, the proud holder of the title Bird of the Year in Croatia. This year’s monitoring will be held from od 15 March until 15 April.

We’re inviting everyone who’s interested to join us on a meeting on 7 March 2024 at 6 p.m. in-person in the offices of Association Biom (here) and online via this link. We will talk more about the ecology of the rook, as well as share some information collected during previous monitorings and what we’ve discovered so far about this species. Thanks to the work of our volunteers who participated in this citizen science activity, valuable information was collected and published in the scientific journal Larus of the Institute of Ornithology of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The rook nests in colonies within settlements, which means that you can often see dozens of nests of this species on a single tree. Rook colonies can be found throughout city parks or trees in line, in settlements, and in small woods outside settlements. The nests are usually in deciduous trees, mainly on populus and platanus trees. Rooks are similar to hooded crows (Corvus cornix), but what makes them different is that rooks are completely covered in shiny, black feathers.

The meeting will be recorded so everyone who’s interested in the topic but won’t be able to attend the meeting can watch it on Association Biom’s YouTube channel.

Translated into English by Lucia Grzunov