wildlife

The bare face at the base of the slender bill marks out the Rook

Two Ravens disputing a meal show their huge size and massive bills

The Carrion Crow’s heavy bill is distinctive, but it is only two-thirds the size of the Raven

Stone The Crows! o

DO YOU KNOW A ROOK FROM A RAVEN? DON’T WORRY IF YOU DON’T, YOU'RE NOT ON YOUR OWN!

By Mike George

wildlife Mike George is our Mike George is our regular contributor regular contributor on wildlife and the on wildlife and the countryside in countryside in

France. He is a France. He is a geologist and geologist and naturalist, living in naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Jurassic area of the Charente the Charente

The big black bird was flying overhead. have given them a bad press. Their Someone asked me, “Is that a rook or a formidable-looking beaks are in fact illcrow?” My initial response was that it equipped for tearing or breaking open could be both. A rook is a member of the corpses, so they tend to seek out road-kill crow family (the Corvidae), so if it were a or mangled material, which is why they rook it would have both bases covered. are so associated with battlefields. That was a rather cheap get-out, though, as I knew what my friend meant; was it a Who’s a clever birdie, then? Rook or a Carrion Crow? The crow's main distinguishing In our part of France we usually see seven different species of the crow family: the Raven, the Carrion Crow, the Hooded Crow, the Rook, the Jackdaw, the Magpie characteristic, however, is its intelligence. Now intelligence is a difficult thing to quantify, and even to define for another species than our own, but if we define it as problem-solving, we may understand it a and the Jay. There are rarities like the bit more. Chough, which lives on the cliffs of Spain and Brittany, and the Azure-winged “Bird-brain” is a common term of abuse, Magpie which inhabits pine-woods in and indeed if we measure the absolute size Spain, but they are so unlikely to be seen of a bird’s brain, even a crow’s, we will that we will ignore them. come up with pretty small numbers. However, if we measure the ratio of brain A Very Remarkable Family to body-size, we can reach some different But before we look at the conclusions. individual species, let us Crows have a look at the crows as a family, because they are quite remarkable. They have been seen to sit on a telegraph wire and do a complete spin around the wire, holding on brain-tobody ratio similar to that of The crow family is large, and with their feet, just for fun chimpanzees covers most of the world. A and few members are quite gaily cetaceans; coloured, but the majority only the are shades of black or grey. Generally Great Apes and humans score higher (and speaking, they are large birds, although Callorhinchus, the rather odd Elephant there are one or two small species, more in Fish, which has a higher ratio even than tropical areas, for the family covers Man, but nobody knows why). This gives practically every type of habitat. crows the capacity to use their brains on a One characteristic of the family is its love rather higher level than their fellow-birds. of flying. Many species of crow seem Now I am not suggesting that they will sometimes to fly for the sheer fun of it. write great poetry any time soon, or solve You will see them on gusty, windy days, The Times crossword, but when it comes swooping and tumbling for no discernible to solving problems of food-gathering and reason apart from pure enjoyment. They responding to the world around them, have been seen to sit on a telegraph wire they are streets ahead of any and do a complete spin around the wire, other creature. holding on with their feet, just for fun. Short-winged crows such as the Jay and Magpie, however, with their slightly more lumbering flight, do not seem to derive the same enjoyment. Take reflections, for example. Show most birds, particularly male birds, a reflection of themselves in a mirror, or even a window-pane, and the bird will assume it is seeing a rival, and react accordingly. Sadly, their generally carnivorous habits Most of us have had the experience of (although they will eat anything edible) seeing a bird fighting a one-sided battle with a window. Show a Magpie its own reflection, however, and it will just check out its feathers and go on with its plans for the rest of the day. It is “mirror-aware” and recognises the reflection as itself. This is a very high-level response. Many birds pick up sticks or twigs and use them to probe for food. The New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) can actually make a tool by combining or modifying leaves to probe for grubs. It has even been observed to pick up a length of copper wire (which the bird in question had never seen before) and bend the end into a hook which it then used to retrieve food. Tool-making! Humans were pretty pleased with themselves when they cracked that one! Talking about cracking, a lot of crows like nuts. However, their beaks, which look fairly fearsome, in fact lack the strength to crack hard nuts. However, a crow was seen in Asia, carrying its walnuts to a trafficcrossing and placing them on the ground, waiting until the passing cars had cracked the shells, then flying down to retrieve the kernels. So what? Well, the bird chose a traffic-light controlled crossing, so that it could fly down when the lights went red to stop the traffic, and thus avoided becoming a traffic accident itself. What about Aesop’s fable of the bird that dropped stones into a water-pitcher to raise the water-level and enable it to reach a piece of floating food? Fantasy? Crows have been observed to do this, picking out from a pile of assorted fragments only those dense enough to sink and displace the water.

We think squirrels are good at laying-up stores of food for the winter. Crows can do this, too, but they are also very cute at watching out for other stores being set up that they can raid, and also at

The Jay’s peach and blue colouration marks it out from the other corvids

A Jackdaw, showing the white nape of the neck, the grey eye and short bill typical of his species

The very distinctive Magpie, with white underparts, blue wings and long tail

concealing their own hiding-places. They mantelée) which has a grey back and even remember how long their items belly. These two interbreed, so sorting have been stored for, so they can go back out the offspring can be fun. and consume perishables before their eat-by date. I wish I could do that for the stuff in my own ‘fridge! The Rook Corvus frugilegus (Fr: Corbeau freux) is much the same size as a Carrion Crow, but has a face that is bare and There are many other examples of this whitish. The bill is slightly more slender sort of problem-solving, and research is than the Crow’s, and still going on. (Why paler. The Rook also not? It sounds has shaggy fun!). The feeling at The feeling at present is that “trousers” on present is that crows in general have the its thighs. crows in general have the problemsolving abilities of a problem-solving abilities of a seven-year-old human child Another distinguishing seven-year-old characteristic of the human child. Rook is its Help the hedgehogs thrive in your garden So how do we tell them apart? gregarious nature. When I asked an old Devonian the difference between a rook To repeat, they are all crows and a crow, he said, “If you see one rook sensu extenso. on its own, it’s a crow. If you see a whole The Raven Corvus corax (Fr: Grand lot of crows together, they’re rooks.” corbeau) is the largest – about the size of Generally speaking, that works. a buzzard. In flight, it has a triangular The Jackdaw Corvus monedula (Fr: end to its tail, unlike the other crows. It Choucas des tours) is smaller than the is all-black, with a beak that looks as preceeding birds – about the size of a though it could open a safe, but in fact is relatively weak, and has not the drilling ability of, say, the woodpecker (though it could take your eye out if it felt so inclined). If you want to see one, go to pigeon. It is described as being “jauntier” than the other crows (unless, of course, it has just been cursed by the Bishop of Rheims). the Tower of London, where a few are The Magpie and the Jay are also always on display. Once seen, never described as “pigeon-sized”, and are very forgotten! These birds, with their long, easily recognised. The Magpie Pica pica wide wings just made for aerobatics, are (Fr: Pie bavarde) with its black-andthe past-masters of aerial display. white markings and its proud strut, is The Carrion Crow Corvus corone (Fr: Corneille noire) is helpfully described as “crow-sized” in one of my books – I hope you know what that means! It is allblack, right to the bill, and like the Raven enjoys soaring flight. There is a subspecies, the Hooded Crow (Fr: Corneille unmistakeable. The Jay Garrulus glandrius (Fr: Geai des chênes) with its pinkish body-colour and black-andwhite wings can be mistaken for a Hoopoe at a quick glance, but if you get a good look at it, the blue patches on the wings stand out and make identification certain.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

Animals that store food for the winter, such as squirrels and mice, will still be busy, although the peak of their activities will have been in October. Hedgehogs and other hibernating species will be searching out good hibernacula and topping up their energy supply for the long sleep. as you raid your wood-pile for fuel, take care not to disturb any hibernators, to whom a log-pile is a mansion. I know I say it every autumn, but please check your bonfire stack if it has been around for a while, and start your bonfire elsewhere, carrying the material to be burned and feeding the new fire. This helps to control the bonfire and avoids incinerating any hapless hibernators. Your garden will be covered with leaves just about now. All the gardening advisers will tell you to sweep them up and dispose of them. I just leave them. Much less hard work, and the leaves act as cover for foraging small mammals and protect the tree-roots and grass from frost to some extent. Also as they rot down they put back nutrients into the soil. Deer, partridges and wild boar are trying to keep themselves fed, and also keep their heads down as the hunting season gets under way. Take extra care if you walk in rural areas, especially wooded ones. Keep your dog on a lead, and wear something bright-coloured. And do remember, it has been said that the partridge is a bird bred to be daft enough for an English aristocrat to outwit it. They behave erratically if you drive up to them. Give them time.

The Cep or Penny Bun Boletus edulis. Very popular eating in Autumn. The French like it raw in salads if it is very young.

The Golden Chanterelle or Girolle Cantharellus cibarius. Reputedly excellent eating, but is becoming harder to find due to acid rain.

The Third Kingdom

WE ALL LOVE OUR AUTUMN MUSHROOMS, BUT THERE IS MORE TO THEM THAN MEETS THE EYE, AND THERE IS DANGER, TOO.

Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente By Mike George

once upon a time there were two great photosynthesize either, but they steal Kingdoms of living organisms: the nutrients directly from other plants. plants (plantae) and the animals (animalia). Everything fitted into one or the other. It made perfect sense. Fungi? Well, they grew but didn’t move around, they released seeds (well, spores, but so what?), and you could pick them and, with certain exceptions, eat them. Clearly they were plants. This, plus genetic studies and a closer study of the sparse fossil evidence for fungi, have led to the setting-up of a third Kingdom, fungi, especially to contain them. More surprising yet is the fact that the fungal kingdom is believed to have arisen after the plant and animal Kingdoms split, and moreover branched Then a closer examination revealed that off from the animal kingdom. This is things were not quite so simple. Fungi because they have chitin, rather than didn’t walk around, but they could lignin, strengthening their cell walls. certainly travel, often reasonably quickly, by progressing their rootsystems and popping up some distance from where they started. OK, you say, so do plants, but not in quite the same way. What Only about a dozen fungi can be described as very poisonous This is slightly interesting, but it doesn’t really impact on our appreciation of fungi themselves, particularly from the gourmet point of view. pops up in the next field is the same Autumn is the time when wild mushrooms organism, not an offspring. A honey become available. Truffles from Périgord fungus measuring 2.4 miles (3.8 km) and Italy appear in the most expensive across, growing in the Blue Mountains of restaurants, and ceps, girolles and Horns Oregon, USA, is believed to be the largest of Plenty (known to the French, strangely, single living organism on Earth. Its total as trompettes de mort) appear in area is 8.9 sq km (2,200 acres) and it is specialist markets. believed to be around 2400 years old. Its total weight has been estimated at 605 tons. There is an enormous range of fine fungi to be had, and the knowledgeable collector can enjoy a feast of subtle flavours in Also, fungi obtain food by digesting other return for a few hours searching in molecules in their environment and meadows or broad-leafed woodlands. absorbing them. They do not However, many British people are afraid to photosynthesize. Of course, there are tap into this bounty in case they eat parasitic plants that do not something deadly. And indeed, there are some dangerous fungi out there, but far less than you might imagine. In fact, only about a dozen fungi can be described as very poisonous, though many more produce stomach pains or sickness. However, the three deadliest are relatively common and, worse, look to the untrained eye very like edible mushrooms. These three are the Olive Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) (French: amanite phalloïde), the Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa) (French: amanite vireuse) and the Panther Cap (Amanita pantherina) (French: amanite panthère), images on page 44). If only a few grams of any of these are eaten, physical distress sets in after about 24 hours, and death will follow in about 3 days. There is no antidote. Worse, if the amanitas are placed in a basket with other, edible fungi the toxin can taint these and render them harmful. If a moderately light dose has been ingested, monitoring of liver and kidney function, and careful electrolyte balancing, can lead to recovery, but death occurs in about 90% of sufferers. Even if you survive, liver damage is inevitable. Often there is a false recovery, when it seems as though the patient has survived, but continuing liver damage results in death shortly after. Although these deadly fungi can look like edible mushrooms to the untrained eye, the former tend to occur in broad-leaved woodland, while edible mushrooms are

The problem is they cam be so variable. Phalloides is typically olive green, but can be yellowish and even white. Virosa is normally white. Pantheria is brown with spots and muscaria red with spots - that is usually pretty definite, but again ageing examples can bleach. That is why mushroom collecting is such a game of Russian Roulette.

more open-field. Also the differences, once you know them, are clear enough. The deadly fungi grow initially in a sheath, and the base of the broken sheath clings to the base of the fungus’s stem forming a ring or even a fringe, while the fragments of the upper part of the sheath remain on the cap, to give the “spots” so distinctive of these fungi. None of this is seen on the edible mushroom. The fungus we are taught to fear as children, the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) (French: amanite tue-mouche) with its distinctive white-spotted red cap, is indeed poisonous, but less so than its three deadly relatives. It is, however, strongly narcotic, and some human cultures use it as a free (but risky) “high”. Reindeer eat this fungus without undue harm apart from developing a distinct friskiness, and it is reported that Lapp reindeer herdsmen prize the urine of the reindeer at mushroom time, as the narcotic element becomes concentrated there. Could this be why Santa’s reindeer can fly? The famous “Magic mushroom”, the Liberty Cap (Psilocybe semilanceata), is well known as a hallucinogen, and became very soughtafter during the years of Flower Power. Now it is illegal in many countries even to have specimens in your possession! Other fungi can have rather odd effects upon the eater. The Common Ink Cap (Coprinus atramentarius) (French: coprin noir d’encre) is edible, and if you enjoy it as part of a temperance meal it will do you no harm. Drink alcohol, however, and you will have a very unpleasant night to follow! This is because the fungus contains a chemical closely related to “antabuse”, the drug that used to be given to alcoholics to try to discourage them from drinking by causing them to vomit if they did. Many fungi will cause acute or prolonged gastric distress, but some act in entirely different ways. The fungus that affects grasses, especially cereals, called Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) manifests itself as a black powder on the flowers and cereal grains. For centuries it was ignored – the link between the fungus and the symptoms The Horn of Plenty or Trompette des Morts Craterellus cornucopioides. Good eating, and not at all poisonous despite its doom-laden French name!

The Magic Mushroom or Liberty Cap Psilocybe semilanceata. This will blow your mind – the poor man’s LSD!

The Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria. Dangerously poisonous, but less so than the other Amanitids

The Olive Death-cap Amanita phalloides. The most poisonous fungus in Europe. Death is almost inevitable if you eat even a few grams of this.

The Destroying Angel Amanita virosa. As deadly as the Death-cap.

The Panther-cap Amanita pantheria. Extremely poisonous –death can result from eating this

was only finally made in the 20th century. There were two distinct manifestations. The toxins, some related to lysergic acid diethylamid (LSD), act by restricting capillary blood-vessels. If they attack those in the extremities of the body, they will produce painful and persistent pins-andneedles, and may eventually lead to tissue damage, gangrene, blood poisoning and death. This used to be known as St Anthony’s Fire, and was believed to be a punishment for sins. Alternatively, if the blood-vessels in the brain are affected, then delusional behaviour, confusion and psychosis can result. This was almost certainly the cause of the mass delusionary behaviour at Salem, Massachusetts in 1692- 3, that led to the false execution of 20 men and women accused of witchcraft. Another fact to bear in mind is that very similar-looking fungi can have very different effects upon you. For example, the Cep (Boletus edulis) (Fr: Cêpe de Bordeaux) is highly prized as a delicious fungus (my French fungus book describes it as “le roi des champignons”), but another species, the Devil’s Cep Boletus satanus (Fr: Bolet de Satan), which to the untrained eye looks

French adore their mushrooms, and tend to be very protective about the best sources

very similar except for a slight redness in the gills, can be strongly poisonous, though rarely fatal. Some very surprising fungi can be excellent eating. I have fried slices of fresh-grown Giant Puffball (Lagermannia gigantea) (French: vesse-de-loup géante) lightly in butter and found them delicious. Of course, with every fungus, what you are eating is the fruiting-body, where the spores develop and from where they are released. The main plant, normally a mass of rootlike filaments called mycelium, continues its life within the substrate in which it is embedded (earth, rotting log, whatever). Most mushrooms need to be eaten when they are young – any sign of serious bruising or woody formation, or serious spore release, usually means they are too old to eat. It is usually a decision between flavour and size. If you decide that you want to learn about fungi, especially how and what to collect and to avoid, there are plenty of local collectors who can guide you. You can even take your mushrooms to your local pharmacist, whose personnel are trained in fungus recognition and will warn you if you have any poisonous specimens. The best reasonably-priced book on the subject in English is Mushrooms by Roger Phillips (Macmillan £18.99). This tells you which fungi are edible and even how tasty they are. Always remember, however, that the French adore their mushrooms, and tend to be very protective about the best sources. If you go collecting in some out-of-the-way place, do not be surprised if an irate French gentleman tells you to make yourself scarce.