Beautiful Things

Ornithophobia

Were you pecked as a child? :grinning:

Both my mother and her sister had a variant. They were (in the case of my aunt she still is) phobic about feathers. They hated flocks of pigeons because of the feathers. If an old-fashioned pillow were to burst they hated that too. But they happily cooked turkey (as long as someone else had plucked it) for Xmas lunch.

VB

Not that I recall. Now I live 100 yards from the sea and I’m surrounded by the damn things!

“Monkey eater”.

Just be grateful all the other theropods became extinct…

Indeed, the size of some of the prey that thing takes is astonishing.

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My mother too - with her it included absolutely everything with wings, she didn’t even like aircraft overmuch - moths though: meltdown…

One of the best things I’ve ever done was a visit to http://www.scottishfalconry.co.uk/

Getting up close and personal with these magnificent birds is quite special

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I’m more than happy to eat the buggers

Although I was always opposed to falconry back in the day when they used to steal eggs and incubate the chicks, however nowadays they’re almost exclusively bred from captive birds. My position has mellowed and I think it gives the general public a great chance to see those magnificent raptors up close and hopefully encourage them to support their conservation.

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Very much so - I don’t doubt there are a few unscrupulous places still about but that particular one is very well run and do some brilliant stuff.

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They’re so good now at detecting and prosecuting (heavily) the cunts that do it that it is a great deterrent.

It’s just a pity that they can’t seem to put the same effort into preventing gamekeepers from virtually eradicating Hen Harriers from England. But then I suppose the landed gentry have some influence over that…

Eradicating them would be a good start :+1:

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Written for a different feline, but reminds me

“What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

Even a Blake illustration couldn’t match that detail.

I was walking in a large private estate (Gorhambury) in St Albans on Friday. I had gone there earlier in the week, but the permissive path was closed so they could shoot some birds. Cunts.

Anyway, it strikes me that if there is one potential upside to Brexit it’s around the abolition of the CAP and the ability to implement our own subsidies. There is no way that the CAP is going to be meaningfully changed, so the only way to take back control ™ is via Brexit.

Gove is already talking about subsidies that more closely mirror good practices in land management for the benefit of wildlife. I really hope that this comes to something - getting more and better hedgerows, diverse forests and managed wildlife enclaves would be wonderful. Naturally my optimism is tempered by my knowledge that Gove is a cunt, and a Tory one at that.

Whilst I applaud this move, there is practically zero chance of a ban on driven grouse shooting which in turn means that raptors, particularly Hen Harriers, will continue to be persecuted to the point of extinction.

Incidentally, there was a study conducted some years ago which came to the conclusion that protecting Hen Harriers on a known estate had practically no effect on the Red Grouse population, but that did not prevent their continued persecution other estates.

Laws already exist to protect them, but enforcement (which is very difficult) is given very low priority.

Kismet…

Wolf cloud

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Nice try, but it’s no Astra, is it? :wink:

It’s good, but it’s no Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt…

A cask-aged internet classic, the questions and reviews are god-tier…

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