Rookery Explained

A rookery is a colony breeding rooks, and more broadly a colony of several types of breeding animals, generally gregarious^[1] birds.^[2]

Coming from the nesting habits of rooks, the term is used for corvids and the breeding grounds^[3] of colony-forming seabirds, marine mammals (true seals or sea lions), and even some turtles. Rooks (northern-European and central-Asian members of the crow family) have multiple nests in prominent colonies at the tops of trees.^[4] Paleontological evidence points to the existence of rookery-like colonies in the pterosaur Pterodaustro.^[5]

The term rookery was also borrowed as a name for dense slum housing in nineteenth-century cities, especially in London.^[6]

See also

• Auca Mahuevo, for a titanosaurid sauropod dinosaur rookery
• Bird colony
• Heronry
• Rook shooting

Notes and References

1. Web site: Mayntz . Melissa . December 17, 2020 . Rookery - Nesting Colonies . 2021-05-22 . The Spruce . en.
2. Web site: Rookery . The Free Dictionary . 24 May 2013.
3. Ceriani . Weishampel . Ehrhart . Mansfield . Wunder . 4 December 2017 . Foraging and recruitment hotspot dynamics for the largest Atlantic loggerhead turtle rookery . Scientific Reports . 7 . 1 . 16894 . 10.1038/s41598-017-17206-3 . 29203929 . 5715148.
4. However, since rooks are found in Europe and Asia and are unlike herons, and corvids do not nest in large masses in the Western world, it is more fitting to refer to birds that nest with herons as nesting in a Heronry or seabirds or other birds nesting together in trees, cliffs, or on the ground as nesting in a breeding colony.Web site: The Crow Family . Wild England . 24 May 2013 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20121227084004/http://www.wildengland.com/wild-animals/resident-birds/-crow-family . 27 December 2012.
5. Web site: Discovery News New Pterosaur Fossils Reveal Diversity . Dsc.discovery.com . 2010-04-29 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100326091238/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041129/pterosaur.html . 2010-03-26.
6. Web site: History of the Seven Dials Area . Sevendials.com . 2010-04-29 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100117052827/http://www.sevendials.com/seven_dials.php . 2010-01-17.