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No, at this rate I think you have a new career ahead of you. Either, Warden of the Swans or Marker of the Swans. Let’s go Swan Upping!

Of course if they made you part of the peerage the heraldry might be kind of fun to see. Mustelidae Rampant does have an interesting ring to it.

Mustelididae Sinister has a better one.

Heh. I’ve posted about the swan-upping before. Forget how it came up.

Love my chickens, but I’d really prefer to stick to mammals.

Meat bird crumbles should do the trick, mom. Don’t worry, they grow up fast. They’ll head out with all the other doves once they hit puberty.

Eurasian Collared Dove

Invasive specie here, they tend to drive the Mourning Dove out of their marginal suburban nesting habitat into the wilder farm and ranch lands. They are larger, faster breeders.

Is it wrong that I see the beginning of a covert of tasty critters: smoked dove, dove and apple pie, dove on toast and on, and on?

Once a hunter, always a hunter.

At this point, I doubt that the parents will return.

If my grandfather was right, however, they are easy and fun to raise and keep. Once they start their love affair with flying, you can put them in a roost attached to the chicken coop.

My grandfather had a HUGE coop in the roof of the chicken run for doves and pigeons. Great fun when we were growing up.

♫ Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul’s
The little old bird woman comes.
In her own special way to the people she calls,
Come, buy my bags full of crumbs.
…Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag.♪

Yeah, stick with the Mammals.
More money in it.

Get arrested for that now. I fed some of my sammich to a pigeon in Victoria Station and Uncle B freaked…

Good luck with the hatchling doves. It’s not easy.

I did not watch the wedding. British royals are so inbred they have the brains of spaniels. Kate’s a commoner, so that helps. One reason to watch: music. Used to be, this blind girl walked around UH campus singing Handel arias. She knew what was played at Charles and Diana’s wedding.

Don’t mean to be a party pooper, but my mom always told me that wild birds carry lice. We were southerners and she had lots of sayings, so who knows?

Why in hell can’t you share your sammich to birds in Victoria Station? Threat of bird poop? Lice?

THEY’RE NOT YOUR REAL NANNY!!

What was the music? I read Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Walton, all of which are strong favourites of mine and quintessentially British.

They look pretty well fledged, so you won’t have long to raise them, a week or so at most, I’d say.

I just can’t seem to get enough food into them, though. I’ve tried several techniques I found on a pigeon forum (yes, of course there are pigeon forums) without much luck. I don’t have the guts to run a tube directly into their crops. I got some liquid into them, anyhow.

They’re livelier today. I’ve put them on the nest for a while; hope springs eternal.

Ah, that’s a relief. Next door neighbor’s sister runs a pet shop and has experience raising birds; she’s taken the little blighters off our hands.

Yes, that’s a good thing.

You aren’t the Crazy Bird Lady. You’re the local entree into the Crazy Bird Lady Network. Keep up the good work!

This last year I installed a bird cam in the wood duck house in my back yard. The hen is sitting on the eggs right now. Actually, I’ve had around four different hens laying eggs in the box so its plenty full of eggs. In the past I never knew if the hatch was successful but this year I’ll get to watch it live on my television.

For Mysterion:
Look, they’re DUCKS! That means the first thing they’ll do after they hatch is paint the lens…
}:-]

We used to take a big eye dropper full of crap and shove it down their throats. No worse than what Momma bird does. Glad it’s no longer a worry.

BTW, you probably should get arrested for feeding pigeons. Personally I hates the things. They always try to set up nests under the overhang on our balcony, I missed watch for a week and it looked like they’d been there for 8 years. Nasty. They also cause problems with roofs, they poop so much the water runs back under the shingles/tiles and leaks into the houses causing great damage.

Te reason for the London edict is because pigeons are vermin there – they’re a species out of control due to an almost complete lack of predation. They do a huge amount of damage and are said to carry diseases.

Mind you, so do French tourists (koff)

If you want predation, put a mess of cats and, yes, weasels in the parks and squares to eat them right up. And hawks. Aren’t leftys supposed to like nature?

I can attest that, as far as I can tell, pigeon nests are held together entirely by poop.

Can soeone remind me what the difference between squab and pigeon is? Not that I would eat either. But then, I won’t eat catfish either. For that matter I wouldn’t eat a French tourist, althiugh I might nibble on one if she were cute and had been throughly washed. 😉

@some vegtable
Squab IS pigeon. Just like veal IS beef. Just young. I think the definition is before they fly – or around 1 month of age. Definitely before they’re eating popcorn and ox flavored crisps in the park.

Dove is actually tasty (as is quail) so I would imagine squab is pretty much the same. Small bones – hard to eat, a fine texture – I can only think of something like chicken liver to compare it to.

I think catfish is ok for somebody else to eat so long as they don’t know what it’s been eating.
🙂

My dad was a dove* hunter back in the day–hated the dang things because it was a buttload o’ work for only a small amount of meat. Naturally we didn’t do the sane thing and just cut out the breasts. That and they always seemed to have buckshot left in them no matter how you tried to find it before cooking.

Glad yours found a home, at least.

*and duck and quail and pheasant and deer and frogs and fish…I was raised on game and don’t really miss it all that much.

Frogs?! Yeuch!

Uncle B, Nina and Uncle M,
Squab is indeed juvenile “Rock Dove” (pigeon). We hunt Pigeon on the fringes of farms, along with this new Eurasian and the traditional Mourning Dove. All of them feed on grains, both domestic and wild.

We have learned how to quickly clean and remove the breasts of these critters. Given that we can shoot 30 a day, the tally can quickly grow to seemingly daunting numbers. A good set of serrated poultry shears is a must.

My favorite recipe is to cut a slit on both sides twixt the breast plate and the muscle, slip in a strip of Hatch green chile (not too hot) then wrap in a partial slice of good American bacon and smoke slowly over apple wood until the color just begins to darken and the bacon begins to harden.

Served on a good water cracker washed down with a good Porter…perhaps some late Summer Squash steamed with sliced tomatoes and onions, and a cob of grilled sweet corn…Yummmmm!

Frog legs and eel — depends on how you cook them; or smoke or deep fry them.

Draw the line somewhere for protein sources…grubs maybe, although I do love good escargot. And, I enjoy eating big bullfrog legs fried up like chicken with grits and greens.

Sven, I’ve eaten a lot of escargot in every form possible, it still winds up tasting like erasers in garlic butter to me. Your recipe for squab sounds pretty good there – I’m quite partial to apple wood and apple wood smoking.

And anything tastes good deep fried, including old converse sneakers. But since you’re in CO, how about Rocky Mountain Oysters?

I love eel, but usually have it as unagi or unago kabayaki (bbq’d) it’s fantastic. The worst I’ve had is jellied eel – something that Uncle Badger or S. Weasel may have developed a taste for by now!? I actually blame too much ale and the presentation for my “lack of appreciation” when I did sample it. Pie & Mash is ok by me though.

I have to give you that one, Uncle Monkey – jellied eels (native cuisine or not) are utterly revolting.

Her Stoatliness seems to have eaten most things in her time. This badger is extremely conservative – not least in terms of what he will eat 😉

There’s a lot I won’t put in my mouth either, Uncle B. My idea of tasty is fairly low-brow.

Rocky Mountain Oysters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And old friend has a ranch up about 9K ft on the North Fork of the South Platte River. Its been in his family for 120 years. The Spring roundup; inoculating, branding, castrating, poling the horn buds, always ended in an Rocky Mountain Oyster fry.

If fresh and well prepared, they are an incredible delicacy. Others I have eaten taste like the snails you mentioned. Erasers Indeed!

Well, it looks like S.W. gets to do the illustration of Osama getting gang-raped by his 72 virgins (all named Bubba) in hell!

Squeal like a pig boy! SQUEAL!

Or, do you already have a gorgeous rendering done and filed away for the big day? We’ll need the alternate color version just ‘cuz.

Anybody have Bin Ladin in the dead pool?

Yeehaw!!! I can’t believe you all are sleeping through this. 🙂

We’re just waking up to it. Good news, but….

First, the elusive and ‘totally unimportant’ Hawaiian birth certificate makes a miraculous appearance, and now this.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting old and jaded and cynical.

Interesting that the Navy Seals got chosen for the job. They can now claim the title of the baddest of the bad. The other services will be sulking this morning that they weren’t chosen for the big game.

CONGRATULATIONS GENTLEMEN! Well done!

Now, I’m off to piss in the ocean.

New dead Pool!! Bye Bye Osama, good riddance!!

Doves love sunflower seeds, and I mean to the exclusion of everything else. Hopefully, you won’t have to chew them up and spit them into the little cheepers.

Unless you want to.

Also, God bless all the SEAL teams operating in the world. You guys rock, but especially SEAL team 6.

Julia, I’m with you. We haven’t heard a peep from this turd in how long? Yeah, he’s dead, but how many just like him have infiltrated thug Barry’s administration with his blessing.

Exhibit 578:

3 convicted terrorists granted citizenship. Thanks Barry! Good outreach.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/3-persons-convicted-terrorism-related-ca

Let’s not forget the ‘tip’ to Obama bin laden’s hidey hole came from interrogations done 4 years ago. Had Barry’s techniques of granting citizenships and more visas been in place, we would still be looking.

Waterboarding. More please.

It is SO cool he got offed by the Seals – better than any Steven Segal movie.

I can just see him wetting himself in a corner behind a nightstand as the door gets kicked down – seconds later to be staring down the barrel of a sidearm. G-bye!

I guess I have to hand it to Obama to let it get done right instead of bombing the place. But, there goes his argument against Gitmo.

Like S.V. says – off to piss in the ocean (and toss in some BBQ flavored pork rinds).

Try a fairly loose slurry of hi-protien chick starter.

I used to rescue pigeons. Then I realized God’ll make more, and I stopped.

Lot of confusion over whether it was a foregone conclusion (‘No, I said I want him DEAD or *wink* ALIVE, understand?’) or whether he was given a chance to surrender and chose not to take it (*one round in Bin Laden* *one round in ceiling* ‘I fired a warning shot, sir!’).

Who cares either way?

He’s fish food, and it’s gin o’clock here! 🙂

Sven in CO: Be careful, or you might wind up like Joey “the Doves” Aiuppa, a well-known Family businessman around Chicago.

He visited a colleague’s farm in Kansas, and they went out dove shooting. The dead birds went in the trunk of Aiuppa’s car, and they went off to dinner. Someone noticed blood dripping from the trunk in the parking lot, and called the local police. The police checked the license plate, found the car was registered to a Italian-American from Chicago, and, understandably, freaked.

They surrounded the restaurant, went in with guns drawn and the rest of it, and had Aiuppa open the trunk – which was full of dead birds.

Aiuppa had 563 doves in the car, and doves were out of season. He was fined $1,000 and did three months.

For Rich Rostrom:
If it happened in present-day Chicago, and if Mr. Aiuppa was not one of the Only Ones or their Masters, I expect that he would not have had a chance to open the trunk…