The traditional date for rook shooting was the 12th. May; the other sort of Glorious Twelfth. Rooks are members of the crow family and nest communally in; you guessed, a Rookery. Oddly enough often in old Churchyards. They can be very noisy places with sometimes several hundred in the larger Rookeries. Due to the fact they like to pull out growing seedlings of cereal crops there used to be a bounty on them. Not only Rook Rifles, so used with a low velocity heavy bullet so they didn't travel too far and cause damage, but bullet bows were used. A sort of Crossbow designed to project a lead round ball.
I suppose that they are not eaten so much now because the modern housewife seems unable to prepare anything that does not come in a shrink wrapped packet from the Supermarket along with full microwave cooking instructions. (Not all as I suspect there are some highly competent spouses of members on this site). Lagopus.....
