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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Silly ID Duck/goose (1 Viewer)

Hi Joern,

Yes it is a problem here too . . . lots of escaped farm ducks breeding with the wild Mallards.

Fortunately, the escaped farm ducks are almost always the ones that the foxes get first!! So they do not last so long. Also the females do not know how to care for their ducklings (normally the farmer does this for them!), so their breeding success is very low. I think these two factors limit a lot the effect that farm ducks have on wild Mallards, so there is hope for the wild ones yet!

Even so, I think more effort should be made to catch farm escapes and return them to the farms (if nothing else for their own safety, to save them from foxes!).

Michael
 
pduxon said:
I
Out of interest why does the idea of Squirrel disturb me?
Click to expand...
Perhaps Pete because Squirrels could be classed as part of the rat family:eat: .
I was once taken on a survival weekend by a guyI was going out with,he was ex Foriegn Legion and although he never mentioned it,I think maybe ex SAS as well.
It was awful.He trapped a rabbit andand roasted a hedge hog. I survived on chocolate bars.Needless to say he was not on my Christmas card list.Shame really ,as he had a nice bike.
Michael and others thanks for the info re the inter duck breeding etc,very interesting and yes sad for some of the ducks who cannot survive in the wild.I have put the other bird i mentioned on a new thread.
This is my first attempt at including a quote,using KC's method so I hope it has worked.
Christine.
 
Mike D said:
Yes - and chihuahuas are derived from wolves!
Funny old world!
Mike
Click to expand...
Mike ,I think this has to be a wind up!!;)
How can chihuahuas possibly be related to wolves?.
I once worked with a pastry cook,in a hotel,who used to come to work witha chihuahua in a basket and it used to roam round the kitchen.The head chef was Belgian and gay,(no offence to either) he kept a cigarette in his mouth all the time and 9 times out of ten each time one reached for a pan there was ash droppings inside it,and he was also addicted to Guiness and his office in the kitchen was stacked high with bottles,and of course the dog basket.
It was chaos!!3:)
 
christineredgat said:
Mike ,I think this has to be a wind up!!;)
How can chihuahuas possibly be related to wolves?.
Click to expand...

All domestic dogs, whatever colour, shape & size, are 100% derived from the Wolf - they should be classified as the same species

Michael
 
Michael Frankis said:
And Chihuahuas were also bred for human food consumption!

Michael
Click to expand...
;) Michael,your cold must be giving you hallucinations,you should return to bed with a hot toddyB :)
Although in retrospect,am I correct in assuming that these dogs originated from the far Eastern hemisphere,therefore you could be correct,perish the thought.
Christine.
 
Michael Frankis said:
All domestic dogs, whatever colour, shape & size, are 100% derived from the Wolf - they should be classified as the same species

Michael
Click to expand...
Michael,yes as usual you are correct.I hadn't thought of that.I used to have a lovely silver grey Alsation,not German Shepherd,she really was a lovely silver colour,and yes her ancestry was very apparent.
Christine.
 
Sorry, no hallucinations there!

Chihuahuas are from Mexico (Chihuahua is a state in Mexico), and they were bred by the Maya & Aztecs for food use, in the absence of any domesticable herbivores in the area (they were too far north for Llamas and Guinea-pigs, and the local native mammals like Peccaries were too intractable to tame). So they ate dogs (which BTW were fed on a largely vegetarian diet).

True, the Chinese ate Chows as well (and still do, probably) . . . .

Michael
 
Yes Michael ,I do believe you.To go down the road of the treatment of dogs and indeed animals in other countries I am afraid cannot be approached hereI have very strong feelings about the same.It is not so much the killing and eating of the animals,but the dreadful conditions to which they are subjected .
Does BTW mean" before the war".
Sadly ,yes these practices are still carried on in far flung countries.I try not too think about it,and do not read the articles in the daily papers.it makes me too angry.
Christine.
 
Hi Christine,

all dogs have the wolf as their wild ancestor, even strange thingys like pugs and chihuahuas (really strange mutations seem to have been preferred throughout the times).
This is one of the oldest domestications of animals by man, perhaps even the oldest.

but seeing some dog breeds I feel really sorry for what we did to them.

Jörn
 
Hi Jörn,
Quite true, despite the fact that some of the pooches & mutts around give the clear impression of being hybrids with Brown Rat. Well I suppose with the possibilities made open through genetic engineering, some of them might be . . . 3:)

Michael
 
Actually , there was a story about an Italian couple smuggling home an animal from brasil which they thought it was a young dog ; they wanted it as company for their chihuahua at home, but when it seriously injured the chihuahua, they brought them both to the vet and he told them: how can you mistake that for a dog, its just a brown rat.

Well, I dont really believe it, its probably just one more of those modern myths.
But that fits to your point, Michael-some of them just look rat like.

But it also reminds me of something else; me being at the North Sea coast some years ago; hearing a guy saying: "All those stupid people doing bird protection saying white storks are such rare birds; and here are thousends of them..." Thats what that guy said; referring to the thousends of oystercatchers resting in the medows in fron of the dyke because of the high tide.

So much for identification skills of normal people... well at least he gotb the colours right.
Jörn
 
Brian,many thanks for the picture.I must say it really is a lovely warm picture,very Autumn like.Thankyou again.
Michael,I know,I'm a dunderhead!!.Definitely if the "BTW"is a texting phrase,but I will definitely remember it for future occasions
Thankyou everyone for your comments.
Christine.
 
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