A trip to Stonehenge yielded some new bird sightings that I didn't expect. While London has surprisingly more birding opportunities that I ever could have imagined, a trip out to other regions of the country allow the opportunity to see different birds from what you usually see in London, or at least in the parts of London I've seen so far. I've learned that there are various wetland locations, so I plan to visit some of those to see what is hanging out there.
Anyway, you sometimes hear about rooks in literature, and of course in chess, but I don't think we have them in North America. They belong to the corvid family, the family to which crows, ravens, jays, and magpies belong, and like their cousins, they are cool looking birds. Unlike their cousins, they have a somewhat prehistoric appearance with their crusty-looking featherless parts around their beak.
One thing that surprised me was seeing a bulge below one of the bird's beaks. I thought it was some type of cyst or health issue, but I learned that this is called the gular pouch, and that it's normal for birds in the corvid family to have them, only that they are often less visible in birds that have feathers right up to the beak. I always like to learn about these things, especially to confirm that I'm not seeing a sick bird that I wouldn't be able to help. The photo on the right isn't a great quality photo, but it gives you an idea what these gular pouches look like. Apparently birds can store food in them, somewhat like pelicans, who have really large gular pouches.
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