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I spoke with a work colleague today about our swans. She told me that where she lives, the illegal immigrants have just about wiped-out the local population of swans.

They’re ‘a cheap source of food’ apparently.

So, of course, will be illegal immigrants. When I unleash the tigers.

Weekly bath nights? Oh to be rich & cultured like you Englishers.

Hey! I had to unlearn from a Tennessean!

We’re lucky if grampa beats us with a wooden-handled toilet brush once a month.

Who gets the bath? The chickens or Uncle Badger?

Oo, is a flea dip included in the package? LOL

Hey ! Bathing is a very important part of the British culture, going back to Roman times. They even named a city after bathing. Every Briton is supposed to take a pilgrimage there once in a lifetime, whether they need a bath or not!

I don’t know about any flea-dip tradition though, Scuba – their experience with the Black Plague suggests NOT.

Swans! Can you lure them to your garden? Do you have a pond near by? I used to live on a little lake with three black Australian swans. They and the other birds (teals, mallards, white geese, and Canada geese) would make the rounds twice a day and swim the perimeter of the lake and honk at the houses for a snack. All of the birds would hop over the bulkhead and come into my garden—except for the swans—but they would let me feed them by hand. Ya gotta let go quick though, or risk a nip by those pretty pink beaks.

Do swans still “belong” to the Queen?

“Garbage Night and Bath Night”

Good.
I’m glad to see you seem to have the order right, too.

Waterfowl sure are pretty and I love to have them around. But at a distance. They produce an astounding volume of crap, especially the geese.

OMG, Uncle Al is so right. If we had swans here in NJ instead of the millions and millions of Lesser Canada Geese, we’d be hip deep in it all year long, instead of merely knee deep.

More likely one of the other swans beat the crap out of the one on the far left. Swans are mean as geese.

Uncle Badger can really move for an old guy.

http://i.imgur.com/MHuW96t.gif

Me, natch.

I love pupster’s links.

That’s me, Pupster!

I’d just spotted a Jehovah’s Witness at the gate 🙂

I dealt with the ownership of swans in this old post.

Our property is bounded on one end by an artificial canal, part of the ancient agricultural drainage. It’s more attractive than it sounds.

The sensible, high speed European Badger flees at the sight of Democrats approaching, while the American Badger, a much lazier creature, figures, why run, they have my SSN, and will just have the IRS track me down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ_uX7OFETY

Resident birds in the UK are property of the Crown? Here in WI, they are consiered WIDNR property, so Hands OFF! No chance for a couple of swanburgers, and a concrete chocolate malt.

Swans are mean as geese.

Meaner. Also, you can intimidate a goose by spreading your arms & charging. A swan will just bite you.

I’m glad my garbage night and bath night are on different nights – that’s some serious multitasking!

Swans as food? A former colleague lived in San Francisco at the end of the Vietnam War. He said as Vietnamese refugees flooded the city, the swans that formerly graced the waterways of Golden Gate Park quickly disappeared. Coincidence? Perhaps? But where some people see a beautiful bird (or grimy gopher or even a grub-worm), others see food.

Ah. I remember that post now. We never had any cygnets on the lake, and not many bird hatchlings of any sort, what with the snakes, turtles, and occasional gators (which were removed and relocated as soon as they could be caught, but even the little ones have big appetites).

Stoaty? You could compose a charmingly morbid childrens’ song (think Addams family) to be played on your banjo—something like “Ohhhh, the chicken eats the worm, and duck eats the bug, and snake eats the rat except when the duck eats the snake …” 🙂

There is a pond I go by on patrol that has plastic swans floating on it’s surface, as that keeps other waterfowl away.

I once observed a swan disembowel a Doberman who got too close to her nest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGlyFc79BUE

I spoke with a work colleague today about our swans. She told me that where she lives, the illegal immigrants have just about wiped-out the local population of swans.

They’re ‘a cheap source of food’ apparently.

So, of course, will be illegal immigrants. When I unleash the tigers
Uncle B, I can see why Stoaty fell for you. :). If there is any like you left over there in formerly merrie old England, please give him my number.

With that said, I think there are pleny of pests that could probably use some thinning of the herd–pigeons, rats, geese, kudzu…they can leave the swans alone.

That is a hilarious badge GIF, I concur. By the way, I approve of the Pogo spelling of “family.”

I’m late to the thread (what a surprise), but had a good laugh at the badger video links and while I’m guessing you’ve already seen Randall’s Honey Badger video, I’m adding it because we’ve laughed at it. A lot. http://randallshoneybadger.com/videos/the-crazy-nastyass-honey-badger/

Weasel, I miss you too. Just started getting back to GC this past month and well, my initial experience is there’s more quantity than quality – both of hides and logs. “TFTC” Really? Could you put any less effort into logging? I actually went back and read some of your old logs the other day because that’s what we used to do on Fridays after work – see what everyone had been up to and decide where we were going that weekend. Anyway I was missing you, lots.

As for the topic of waterfowl… Joshbro bought a house that backs up to a lake this past year. He’s got about 25 Canadian Geese that regularly settle in on his lawn. Uncle Al is right – oh my god, the POOP!