LETTERS have been dropping through letterboxes urging people to help a local council to identify a rogue rooster which has been ruffling feathers in a quiet village.

Richmondshire District Council received complaints about tranquil mornings in Scorton, North Yorkshire, being shattered by the sound of a cockerel crowing.

As a number of residents keep chickens, no one is sure whose are to blame. The crafty culprit always manages to fall silent before being rumbled.

But environmental health chiefs have shown they're not easily deterred and have written to local homeowners appealing for information about the feathered fiend.

Spokesman Sean Little said: "Like any noise complaint, we have a duty to investigate.

"One option is to prosecute for causing a nuisance and, as part of that, then have the bird removed, although we are nowhere near that stage."

However, the early morning crowing has left local smallholders baffled.

Hans Waltl is among a number of people who have kept chickens on land on the edge of the village for some years, but he claims the complaints only began recently.

He said: "Some people have kept their chickens in overnight to limit the noise in the morning, but that goes against the grain of free-range hens.

"People want free-range eggs but they don't want to be disturbed by the hens."

Mr Waltl said he sympathised with the council and he accepted its officers have to respond to complaints.

He said: "However, I can't believe they want to get involved in something like this as they have a limited budget and resources."

Another resident, who asked not to be named, said she had also written to the council suggesting it may want to drop the matter.

She said: "We live in the country and a cockerel crowing is a country sound in the same way that you can hear traffic, loud music and shouting if you live in the middle of a town or a city.

"Soon, we will have the dawn chorus. Are the people who have complained about the cockerel going to demand the council comes out and dispatches all the wild birds for making a din?"

Ward councillor Michael Heseltine said no one had complained to him, although he certainly hoped that the matter could be settled amicably.

However, he added: "It may come as a surprise to some people that chickens and eggs are not made in supermarkets but can have natural origins. The way I see it, the noise of a cockerel crowing is part of country life."