Falcon Man of Mayfair

[Deleted User] · April 2014

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[Deleted User] · April 2014

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checkski · April 2014

Sutent, I admire your tender-hearted attempt to stick up for the flying rat. People become extraordinarily ad hominem towards some creatures. Hominem. That won't do, will it? I shall have to join Misscara's Latin class. Ad piccionem - something like that - but my 1958 O Level Latin doesn't really stretch that far. Anyway, Sutent is plainly a very nice chap, and probably a Buddhist, to boot. He obviously wouldn't hurt a flea, even though the rest of us are swotting the little blighters left, right and centre. Sutent would stick up for the civil rights of the flea - well the poor little poppet is only doing what all God's creatures do, ie what Churchill called KBO - Keep (ing) Buggering On. But others on this forum have a very large concept of Rubbish, and like nothing more than to sweep the stuff into the bin. Pigeons, squirrels, foxes, fleas all belong there, dear Sutent (keep up!), and it doesn't much matter how we get it there. A hawk or two would do the job nicely. Tough up, Sutent! Or you might get swept away as well, by the StroudGreen.Org Cleaning Brigade.

Mirandola · April 2014

They're also acrobats with iridescent feathers.

[Deleted User] · April 2014

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vetski · April 2014

Thanks, @Misscara - interesting!

checkski · April 2014

Ok, Vetski, your starter for ten: to the pigeon? Ad piccionem? Course not! What, then?

conformable_kate · April 2014

Vermin: it's a mobile concept. As with dirt, it's a human term to identify things we think shouldn't be where they are - and historically, particularly animals that compete with humans for resources. Mice are vermin when they eat your sacks of wheat, though not when you have them in cages to play with. Foxes are vermin because they eat human chicken supplies. Birds of prey are vermin if they eat your sheep - or if you think they might (think red kite, almost driven to extinction before being reclassified, or indeed eagles, still shot by farmers and gamekeepers). The correlation of vermin and dirt is a rationalisation of human distaste, really. I'm not getting into the pigeon debate, but I don't think that vermin can be taken as a purely descriptive and objective term.<div><br></div><div><br></div>

krappyrubsnif · April 2014

Squirrels = rats with good PR

vetski · April 2014

@checksi, the Latin for street pigeon is Columba livia - so I guess 'ad columbam liviam'? It sounds a bit clumsy, though!

Idoru · April 2014

@conformable_kate You're completely right. Neither vermin nor pest are legally defined terms, though people try to use them as such, generally to justify killing something. It pretty much amounts to 'I don't like [insert species here]' and the terms are applied to anything from cockroaches to Golden Eagles. They're emotive and purely subjective.

[Deleted User] · April 2014

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Idoru · April 2014

<font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">"</font><b style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lord Whitty: </b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is no definition of the term "vermin" in UK law."</span><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#333333" face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldhansrd/vo031008/text/31008w02.htm</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#333333" face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div><font color="#333333" face="Verdana, Arial, sans-serif"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">No one said that a cockroach nest is subjective. It's the application of emotive and non-legally defined terms that's subjective.</span></font></div>

[Deleted User] · April 2014

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[Deleted User] · April 2014

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Sutent · April 2014

I am just catching up with it all. Very interesting and as usual I have learn loads. Thanks Cheksi for you input. Would love to meet you at some point. <div><br></div><div>I don't have any particular love for pigeons, but I feel sorry for them as they seem to be globally disliked by everyone. They are a victim of their own success as they are resilient efficient animals who negotiate the dangers of city life very well. Scientifically they do not harbour or spread disease any more than any other animal. I agree Pigeons can be pests to humans like foxes, squirrels, rats etc. </div>

Idoru · April 2014

"What would you prefer to call them if not vermin?"<div><br></div><div>Probably nuisance species would be better. That's not a legally defined term either, but it doesn't carry the sam negative connotations as vermin. </div><div><br></div><div>But really in the context of this forum and most conversations it isn't that important - other than for accuracy. The problem is when landowners and gamekeepers use the word to justify the illegal killing of animals or Defra uses it to excuse the allowing of culling of Black-headed Gulls at a breeding colony or the destruction of Common Buzzard nests, in direct contravention of the UK's Wildlife and Countryside Act and the EU Bird Directive. </div><div><br></div><div>Vermin has certain connotations - dirty, diseased, destructive, etc - and applying the word in certain cases is helping the government and individuals get away with criminal acts. As for the feral pigeons, there's no evidence that they're any more disease or parasite ridden than any wild bird, but because they're characterised as vermin people tend they are. In fact you're more likely to catch a disease from poultry than pigeons. That said I don't like them either and think we should just introduce lots of Peregrines to get rid of them.</div>

Perflexed · April 2014

When we first moved to the area and before our cat adopted us, we had a mouse problem. Whilst watching one of these mice scuttling about the patio one summer morning, a smallish bird swooped vertically downwards at a staggering speed, snatched the little mouse, and was back up fifty feet or so in the air before I knew what had happened. Now, I know fanny adams about ornithology, but I think it might have been a sparrowhawk (anyone?), but I have never seen any thing like it since. It was one of those red in tooth and claw moments that always stays with you.

Idoru · April 2014

Difficult to say with any authority, but your description of it as smallish suggests Kestrel. Sparrowhawks and Peregrines are bigger. There are definitely Kestrels in the area.

[Deleted User] · April 2014

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ChangN4N6 · April 2014

Technically they are vermin and filthy. Chang

Toddlesocks · April 2014

@Perflexed, must have been quite a shock. Am always saddened by the amount of river young that don't make it, worry about seeing similar. I was going to make an Owl sculpture for my garden, would it deter other birds from visiting?

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