Dumb animals

[Drew]

We've 'done' wabbits, so any other animal encounters worth
recounting?

This morning I was having a shower (yea I know, it's only September)
and through the misted window I saw some large brown shapes on the
lawn. Three deer, thirty feet away, bold as brass, were breakfasting on
our ornamental shrubbery. I shouted "I shoot squirrels and they are
even cuter than you," which they totally ignored and proceeded onto
the roses.

Last week, blatting along on my bike in East Lothian I came across a
road I'd never burned before. Supposedly a Class B but hey, long wide
and straight with super surface. Passing the sole car I rolled the
throttle back and went for the vanishing point. Looked like a bit of a
wump ahead so I held the girl at a ton, locked my arms then rolled the
throttle to coast (transverse engines tip you over if they rev whilst
airborne). I then experienced much time to contemplate my
miscalculation. This wasn't a wump, it was a cliff. I was in the sky
for so long I'd time for a fag, a cup of tea and couple of chapters
of 'War and Peace'. Suffering from vertigo and oxygen starvation I
finally landed with a sickening crump as the suspension bottomed out.
Nothing broke, even my reinforced panniers survived, but I found myself
in a debris field of silencers and hub caps. Speaking later to my mate
(who I was on my way to visit) he said "Oh yes, I know that one!" A
road he now avoids because he'd hit the wump at sixty in his Subaru
and got seriously crossed up on re-entry into earth's atmosphere.
"Well that was interesting" I thought, and contemplated dropping my
speed slightly but the feeling passed. As you will know, a problem with
two-wheeled vehicles is that swerving is impossible but no-one had told
the pheasant which ran across my path ten seconds later. No way I was
going to avoid it and just hoped the impact wouldn't collapse my
wheel. Bit of a thump as the witless creature disintegrated, sliced by
my brake disks and tangled in the spokes. Brief impression of a pillow
fight in an abattoir. Feathers and pheasant entrails embedded
themselves in the recesses of the engine, wheels and fairing and the
pink of my leathers became tastefully complemented by streaks of red.
Then I noticed a dozen or so of its brothers and sisters strewn across
the road in a veritable killing field. As dumb animals go, you don't
get much dumber, but for the rest of the journey I was accompanied by
the tantalising aroma of barbied pheasant rising from the exhaust
pipes. I returned home by a different route.

Best

[Phil]

Drew,

What a story! Near pissed myself. Especially with
reference to a pillow fight in an abattoir.

I must admit that I have more often than not been the
dumb one when it comes to animal handling. Even a
sheep managed to outwit me once. Now that tells you a
lot Drew. A Praying Mantis once had the upper hand
on my inquisitiveness also. Quite a bite from just a
green quivering stick of a thing.

Back to the sheep. I was drenching a small mob.
The race held about 25 to 30 mid sized hoggets.
The idea is to hunt each run out of the race, close the
gate and bring in the next lot. Well, one recalcitrant
ovine just would not get out and join the others. As I
stated to climb over the railing fence to persuade his
direction, the bloody thing lined me up, jumped up and
head-butted me. The anger of my callow youthfulness
reacted with a punch to the head of the sheep. Now how
dumb was that? Sheep's heads have a very high shore
hardness. I recall that the sheep in question then
happily trotted off amid my blast of swearing.

Phil

[Phil]

And in defense of my own stupidity, have you ever
noticed how sheep will on occassion jump over an
imaginary object. Once one does it, the rest will follow.
This often occurs as a mob is being pushed through a
clear and open gateway.

We used mirrors in the shearing shed sometimes. A
sheep isn't that stupid not to trust a dark and noisy
tin shed. Placing a mirror at the end of the holding pens
opposite the entry, tended to draw them in .. sometimes!

[Jerry]

I've heard of sheep rolling over cattle grids

I've even heard of a case where one lay down on the grid and the rest
trotted over it

@Drew, maybe you should rechristen your bike 'the pheasant's nemesis'

[Norman]

Nine out of ten pheasants who expressed a preferance said that they
would prefer to be disemboweled in the spokes of a moto Guzzi.

Best

[Norman]

Since we seem to have moved seamlessly into stories of deer, here are
two from personal experience. The first isn't anything really except
that I got to see them at very close quarters. I was driving off the
Sierra Nevada in California along one of those loopy hairpin bend roads
when I came around a bend where the road ahead was hidden by pine trees
and there was a family of five sitting on the tarmac. I pulled over and
watched for a few minutes until somebody came from behind revving and
blasting the horn and that was the end from it.

The other was on a trip to Scotland just after my first wife had passed
her driving test. I had an MGB at the time and she had been pestering
me for a go in it so I pulled into the C class road that runs around
the back of Loch Tummel and Loch Fascally and said "You won't
encounter much traffic on this road so run it for about ten miles into
Pitlochry". She Haden't even got into third gear when this about
twenty point stag leaped out of the undergrowth and nearly landed on
the bonnet. Fortunately she had remembered her emergency stop and then
immediately turned to jelly. Good on her, she managed to recover and
drive it albeit conservatively into Pitlochry.

Best

[Drew]

Glad you enjoyed it Phil, just your average day biking story. Power
washed me Guzzi disemboweler today and discovered something very
interesting. One hundred bar water jet strips paint but not dried
pheasant blood!.

Re the mantis, I got bitten by a grasshopper in Greece. Bleedin huge it
was. In retrospect, the Doc Martin boots should have warned me of
it's potential belligerence.

God yes, the area round Pitlochry and the Trosachs is deadly for
vehicle / deer 'interfacing'. Red dear at that, not the relatively
petit roe which we get here. Confess that I did clip one of them with a
front wing a few years ago but think it was OK. Many reports of deer
landing on bonnets and does that loosen one's bowels. At least
though, reds are more prone to full frontal but I drive my bike
geriatrically slow in these regions when the verge is hidden.

Sheep. Drove past The Grey Mare's Tail (which you may know Norman)
last week, noting that the road hadn't changed in quality in the last
forty years. At the Tail though, sheep get to know a good thing and I
was once pinned to a car door by a big butch ewe convinced that the
world owed it a living. Goats did it too but I think they eventually
got culled, not because there were too many but simply because they
were just too bleedin annoying. Pretty brave of Phil to thump a sheep
on the head -- at least he didn't heed-butt it, that would have been
stupit. I back off from well hung rams on the moors. But no, it
hadn't really consciously noticed sheep jumping over imaginary
objects but now that you mention it...... Rolling over cattle grids,
gonna ask around on that one. Seen a wabbit jump over a wall though --
oops keep coming back to bunnies. Mate I went to see last weekend once
killed two with one 0.22 bullet. Was that second bunny unlucky, he
hadn't even seen it!

Best

[Phil]

Drew,

Enjoying yours, Norman's and Jerry's antics as always. Just now
found this post of yours, as the new one's are not being highlighted,
and have not been so for a few days. The dates seem to be a bit
out of whack also.

Anyhow, I might have mentioned this short story some time ago.
I was not present, so all is heresay. (Never let the truth get in the
way of a good yarn).

Two mates were playing golf. Frank, (a weekend hacker) hit off and
inadvertently collected the rear end of a duck. The duck continued
flailing for some time. Sholto decided to break the poor bird's neck
in order to place it beyond pain and misery. In doing so, Sholto
disengaged the duck's head from it's body. Blood and feathers again
Drew.
The intriguing part of the story is that neither Frank nor Sholto ever
found the golfball.

Phil

[Jerry]

Did you eat the duck ?

[Drew]

In time Phil, Gurgle Groups may perhaps migrate to 'release
quality' just like the perfect MS software. Last big change appears
to be the date stamp in local time, soon after Jerry had described the
process. Did they read his post?

One should of course not laugh at the duck's misfortune, but to my
shame I did. Anyone else inclined to feast on roadkill? I have been
known to pick up newly killed pheasants for the pot, as long as course
they haven't been totally mangled by some tearaway thug on a
motorbike.

Best

[Drew]

Just went outside for a pee and as I was watering the petunias I
noticed 'our' hedgehog on it's back legs struggling to get up a
wee wall to a flower bed. No idea why it was so imperative that it
should climb up the wall at that point but it just wasn't going to
make it. Even at full stretch it's never going to be acrobatic so I
gave its tush a little push and it scrabbled up. Now I'm quite fond
of hegies, but bit dumb I'm afraid. Have to regularly check the
cattle grid.

Best