End of the 'open' nesting Jackdaw colony here at Westport
Unfortunately the small ,(5-7 nests) Jackdaw colony which took to building nests in the open 'Rook style',at the top of three overgrown ex-Xmas trees is no more as the last tree has just had to be taken down - the high winds and saturated ground caused the roots and ground to lift up one side and they were unsafe. The Jackdaws built there nests where the branches of these 50ft trees crossed into each other forming a dense clump in the middle. Despite all the birds efforts over the years I never once saw a youngster in the branches so maybe they fledged the nests and flew out of the trees without stopping ? In recent years they have had a lot of hassle from local Crows with two nests pulled to bits last year.
Searched the internet when they first started doing this and only found one reference to one pair recorded as open nesting instead of the usual nesting in holes in trees / chimneys etc...end of a small era...shall miss all the noise they made when excited / threatened which was considerable !
