Thieving birds ruffle feathers

Birds are ruffling feathers in one of Nenagh's main graveyards, robbing shiny pebbles from graves. Crows, or rooks, are finding the shiny polished pebbles used to decorate the surface of graves in Lisboney Cemetery hard to resist. The black feathered thieves of the sky are swooping down and flying off with considerable quantities of the attractive glittering blue-coloured pebbles.

Local gravedigger John Spain, who has captured several photographs of the thieving rooks in action, told this newspaper that he had observed rooks take away a substantial amount of decorative pebble from the surface of one particular grave of a deceased member of the Traveller Community.

He said the graves targeted by the rooks were ornately decorated, and particularly tended to be graves of Traveller families whose tradition it was to spend considerable amounts of money enhancing the final resting places of their departed loved ones. "There's one grave where many stones were taken away over a couple of weeks," said Mr Spain.

Albert Nolan, who writes a highly popular nature column for this newspaper, said rooks, like magpies and jackdaws, were members of the crow family and all were attracted to shiny objects.
"They like shiny objects, and magpies will bring them to their nests to decorate them. Like magpies, rooks are very intelligent and curious about objects," he said."They could be presenting the pebbles as a gift to a prospective partner, or just playing with them or doing it for fun or out of curiosity, or just to be mischievous."
Mr Nolan said there were some similarities between members of the crow family and humans. "Like ourselves, they like a bit of jewellery and bling.They are attracted to something different or unusual.

"Graveyards can be sombre and dull places, but this coloured stone is unusual and it is something that stands out for the rooks - they're a little bit different, and they like something different."
Mr Nolan said he had grown up with stories about magpies stealing watches and gold coins. "But I have looked in to hundreds of their nests and have never found jewellery in them.