There was also a small rookery of around 20 - 30 nests at the bottom of the village in the grounds of Broadbottom Hall, but this has long gone.
The Jackdaws are still there although many have moved onto the viaduct to nest.

The Broadbottom/Mottram area has lost a lot of species since those days -- Yellowhammers, Grey Partridge, Yellow Wagtails, Cuckoos, Tree Sparrows, Common Snipe etc no longer breed. Besides the rookery, Broadbottom had huge numbers of breeding Swift which have more or less disappeared with the addition of dormer bedrooms on many of the stone terraces. The Lapwings and Skylarks have gone from the Mudd at Mottram has indeed have Redstarts from Bothams Hall Wood (Great Wood) although perhaps an odd pair may still breed there.
Sadly its not just birds the last wild flower meadow was built on a few years ago.

I remember the gamekeeper at The Keg, having once been the recipient of the salt pellets ( would have been at least a good £50,000 compensation these days!) and fell into the river about half an hour later - an interesting sort of day.

I counted c27 active nests at the bottom of Hill End Lane on the Broadbottom/Mottram parish boundary yesterday. The nests are on both sides of the Mottram/Broadbottom road.

There used to be a huge rookery at Broadbottom that was counted in the late 1950s by a local as 1500+ nests. It stretched from the wood at the back of Broadbottom cricket field all the way to the start of the village proper at Market Street. It used to be quite a sight when all the birds flew up at once during a "dread". It used to be even bigger from what older people in the village told me as there used to be many pairs that nested on the opposite side of the railway but were persuaded to "move on" following complaints from railway passengers. I have never seen a rookery anywhere approaching the size of the Broadbottom one anywhere in Britain.
In 1944/1945 the Ministry of Agriculture did a rookery census over many parts of Britain including Cheshire (Broadbottom of course being in Cheshire at the time). They must have missed Broadbottom as the full results for Cheshire showed only 390 nests as the largest rookery in the county!(at Swettenham)
Numbers began to fall rapidly from the early 1960s until by the late 1970s there was probably only around 250 pairs. The final straw was when houses were built inside the wood after many trees were cut down.
However a few hung on at the top of the wood where I counted 35 nests only, a few years ago. The wood has recently been abandoned so I assume that the current rookery are birds from there, as it is only a few hundred yards away.

All 8 nests occupied at 1910hrs in the Delph rookery

Near Stockport Schoo, Great Moorl on the A6.

c19 nests counted as I drove slowly by in traffic jam.

Cheers, John

I went to check the rookery on Bradshaw Road, Bolton, this morning to find nearly as many wagons as nests as they were doing road resurfacing at the the very spot. On my way back from Hawkshaw I tried to count the nests from the track to Toye Farm, and estimated between 12 & 15 nests.

Around Woodsend Park, Flixton, we usually have 20-30 Rooks wintering and there is at present, a small rookery of 5 nests in 1 tree, on the south side of the park.

Rookeries ? You're lucky, just 1 Rook would do us on Salford Quays, where it is an absolute mega (don't think there has ever been a record!)

30+ Hollingworth Near the Gun Inn

Colin Ramsden wrote:

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As of today:
Heap Bridge (Bury) - 2 nests.
Chamber House Farm (Heywood) - 4 nests.
Not good.

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Hi Colin,

I read your post today and also the one regarding the Birch rookery yesterday with interest. I'm of the opinion that most birders don't spend enough or indeed often any time at all around rookeries at this time of year - they are great places to be with all the sights and sounds and there is usually always something worth looking at and marvelling at. They don't know what they're missing! The figures for Heap Bridge as you say are not good, particularly as I counted 19 there on 17th March last year. One wonders if this rookery will cease to exist shortly as it appears to have suffered a very steep decline, with total nest counts in the 60's and upper 50's only as recently as the second half of the 1990's. Very sad. Some just slightly better news however. Whilst I was up at Birtle over the winter months and as usual spent more of my time talking than bird watching I ended up chatting with one of the local residents who told me of a rookery near his house. I certainly wasn't aware of it and when I checked on 2nd April this year there were 13 nests there, although this in itself is quite a decrease from the 21 counted by the local resident last year. Just wondering if some of the Heap Bridge birds have moved to this site at Birtle, which is only a mile or so to the north? I'm not sure how new this Birtle rookery is, although it doesn't appear to have been present during our recent local breeding birds' atlas project (2008 -2011) when the relevant 2km by 2km square just shows Rook as a possible breeder. Just wondering too if some of the Heap Bridge birds might have moved to an as yet undiscovered new rookery? I'm trying to be optimistic, when the counts you reveal today look, as you quite rightly say, to be really gloomy.

If you are intending on counting the two other local ones at Healey Dell (only part in GM I think?) and at Nutters, Norden then I might see you, as I'm intending visiting all the local rookeries in the next week or so.

Cheers,

Bill,


-- Edited by Bill Myerscough on Tuesday 9th of April 2013 04:35:22 PM

keith mills wrote:

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Small active Rookery seen this morning along Chorley Old Road, Bolton. ( Bottom o' th' Moor, Near Blundell Arms)
30 nests counted with plenty of Rooks present

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30 nests isn't a small rookery these days in this county, Keith.

The Greenfield colony seems to be increasing from the usual 3 nests

Steve Suttill wrote:

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keith mills wrote:

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Small active Rookery seen this morning along Chorley Old Road, Bolton. ( Bottom o' th' Moor, Near Blundell Arms)
30 nests counted with plenty of Rooks present

---

30 nests isn't a small rookery these days in this county, Keith.

The Greenfield colony seems to be increasing from the usual 3 nests

---

Thanks for your insight on this Post, Steve.
I will have another look soon. There were quite a few small nests as well, which I did not count. Possibly these
are in the process of construction? Some of the Rooks/nests are very near the Road, so I did not hang
around too long.


-- Edited by keith mills on Monday 8th of April 2013 05:51:48 PM

The Hartsead Rooks are back this year but have moved slightly. Bet with the weather in West Yorskhire that they had moved to South of France!!

Hi
The Hartshead Service Station rookery has now been destroyed by the M62 roadworks - almost all the trees with nests have been felled. Hopefully we will get a few more next year. Also, looking out over the weekend there appears to be a good number of young birds this year. I used to live in Alkrington and there was a succesful rookery there until a few years ago but sadly it s no more, also probably was one nearest to city centre. They all seemed to have transferred to Birch. On the other hand, their relatives, Jackdaws, ust seem to be increasing in numbers and range in N Manchester.

Rodney Harrison wrote:

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We have a rookery at the back of our house in Rastrick, had 13 succesful nests last year but have 19 this year, are those in Manchester showing signs of increase after the two previous bad winters?

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Hi Rodney,

Pleased to hear about the increase at your local rookery. Wonder if you might have a few more next year after reading on some other forum of possible disturbance near to the rookery at Hartshead Moor Services on the M62 during this breeding season?

I suspect that for many birders Rooks are one of our less interesting species and sadly don't attract a great deal of attention. I'm lucky that I personally enjoy the sights and sounds of a rookery in spring and have counted a few this year but like many things bird related I suspect that timing is of the essence and I probably counted a few a bit too early in the breeding season to be sure I had got the maximum numbers of nests that may have been built. Whilst updating my records I also had a look at some recent historical records that I could find at some of these sites, which I thought might be of interest.

Site 1 - 32 nests on 26th Feb had increased to 88 by 25th March. There were 50 in 1996, 60 in 1997, 75 in 1999, 70 in 2001, 80 in 2004 and 109 in 2009.

Site 2 - 19 nests on 17th March. There were 60 in 1996, 60 in 1997, 56 in 1998, 50 in 2000, 42 in 2001, 34 in 2002, 28 in 2004, 41 in 2005, 44 in 2006, 32 in 2007, 34 in 2008 and 25 in 2009.

Site 3 - 42 nests on 18th March. There were 61 in 1996, 50 in 2004, 34 in 2006, 35 in 2007 and 33 in 2009.

Site 4 - 23 nests on 8th April. There were 30 in 1996, 21 in 1998, 23 in 1999, 21 in 2000, 23 in 2004, 20 in 2005, 9 in 2008 and 20 in 2009.

Site 5 - 18 nests on 18th April. There were 25 in 1996, 22 in 1997, 20 in 2000, 27 in 2003, 16 in 2004, 15 in 2005, 9 in 2006, 13 in 2008, and 17 in 2009.

Site 6 - 4 nests on 9th April. There were 4 in 1996, 10 in 1999, 3 in 2002, 10 on 2004 and 8 in 2009.

Site 7 - 1 nest on 20th April. This held as many as 18 nests in 1996 and 10 nests in 1998, down to 6 by the mid 2000's.

From the above it would appear that some colonies appear to fluctuate, whilst a few have declined, some substantially in the timescales noted. Finally, a little further back in this thread Judith Smith detailed the figure work for the last two organised Rook surveys in GM when in 1975 there were 45 rookeries containing 1418 nests but by the time of the next one in 1996 these figures had declined to 43 rookeries containing 956 nests. I wonder if it might be a good idea for all of us GM birdwatchers to have a concerted effort next year to count all of our rookeries?

Cheers,

Bill.

We have a rookery at the back of our house in Rastrick, had 13 succesful nests last year but have 19 this year, are those in Manchester showing signs of increase after the two previous bad winters?

now 4 nests (1 very large) behind the Coop pharmacy in Greenfield.

-- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Saturday 26th of March 2011 08:25:30 PM

Nest building at Delph. 12 birds present at 1230 on 19/03.

will do should be easy as i can see it from the bedroom window

new rookery forming in greenfield behind the co op pharmacy at least 4 visible nests so far but more birds present in trees

Ian McKerchar wrote:

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Originally postedby Rob Hamilton today:


hi, im reasonably new to birding and i still need to carry a book to reference to but i am getting better each trip. The other day i managed to track down a very large rookery in happy valley the best view is from the entrance on jacksons lane next to norbury athletics pitch , walk down the path until you reach the end of the football pitch and they roost the other side of the river directly infront. Its an amazing sight around four ish there are thousands of them flying in formations/displays.
Thanks
Rob

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Hi Rob and welcome to the forum,

I live on the 'racecourse estate' in Hazel Grove and each winter large numbers of corvids fly over my house in the evening to roost. These are mostly Jackdaws plus some Rooks and single flocks of 1-2000 are not uncommon. They also fly out again over my house early morning to their feeding grounds.


Your flock has been reported elsewhere on the forum - have a look under 'Hazel Grove' thread for December 6th - 13th 2009.

The Hazel Grove thread is further down this page but, when logged on, it's better to use the useful 'search' facility at the top of the page.

Cheers, John

tbh Henry thats kind of what i meant by saying the ones the airport are worrying about. As in they see the odd rook nearby and use them as the excuse to look for the largest colony nearby to desimate! There were 3 or 4 there again today at 1.45pm (in the field across the road from the romper) they are very shy tho as twice now i tried to get some good photo's only for them to disapear towards the bolllin.

there were several rooks (along with swallows lapwing and carrion) in the fields just off sunbank lane near the romper pub yesterday. This is just on the other side of the airport from civic centre and an easy flight across the airport. Maybe these rooks are the ones from Dunham the airport is so worried about.

I have been having quite long discussions with a couple of people at the Airport today. I suggested that they colour-ring the Rook nestlings, or fit radio transmitters to them, at Dunham Forest GC. They seemed glad of a practical approach, and are going to ring the BTO to find out more. Basically, I think the problem is not birds on the airport itself, but large numbers of corvids and woodpigeons flying across the airport on their way to a communal roost somewhere. They may get a student in from MMU (where they have contacts) to study this as a long term project.

Today round Dunham Massey were a number of posters talking about Manchester Airport shooting Rooks on 30th April. There was an online petition

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/dunhamrooks

This says

"On April 30th at 6am Manchester Airport will be sending 5 Men,
armed with guns with the intention to kill all the birds in the Dunham Massey Rookery.
The Rooks have been living in these nests forever.

The Airport's intention is to try and prevent bird strikes,
which of course is essential as obviously humans safety is paramount,
but killing these rooks will not solve the problem at the airport. "

I find this a bit strange as DM is quite a way from the airport and why pick on Rooks ?
I thought you could only shoot Crows under special circumstances such as Agricultural pests - not on the off chance they might fly near the airport ??

Edit - Having spoken to Judith, apparantly they are within their rights. Rooks on nests are an easy target and are classed as pests. According to CAA guidelines, any 'bird attractant' within 13km of an airport is to be 'controlled' so maybe we shouldn't be publicising Rookeries in the vicinity !

-- Edited by Tony Coatsworth on Monday 27th of April 2009 11:52:45 AM