The Ranting Room

 

I had 11 fish in my pond last night - I have none now.

 

If I catch the bd I'm going to cook it and eat it (or feed it to the cats)

 

Oh sh*t but I'm not surprised. Here cometh the Heron gospel, according to St Dingo.

 

First off they're virtually parasitic bast*rds. The hotel kitchen I worked in last year backed onto the the River Bure and one particular bird - they're real loners and their territories run for miles - used to eat the scraps that fell from the bins out the back. Then it would flap over to the terrace area and allow the stupid tourists to feed it with discarded meal remains, anything. One of the waitresses used to nick rashers of bacon from the kitchen, make the blessed thing walk towards her and hand feed it with the rasher so her colleague could photograph her doing it and she'd then send the picture to her boyfriend.

 

Then the bloody thing would go to the opposite bank and wait for a tolerant fisherman to drop some maggots and gobble those up as well - orange dye and all.

 

However, a garden pond, with no covering net, is easiest of all for them. They are large birds and can just stand on the bottom and gobble everything they can find.

 

To catch your thief, IMO, is mission impossible. They actually nest low down on marshland if they can find it, or a wet field if they can't. Their courtship is akin to that you get in a brothel so you'd never find a pair.

 

They're not the Arthur Daley's of the avian species, they're the Nick Cottons. Round my way anyone with a pond lives in total and constant fear of one decimating the contents. Ironically, you are not allowed to shoot them legally, tho most people round here would, given the chance.

 

Stable door, horse bolted, but the only advice I could offer to prevent a repeat is to buy a tacky plastic one from a sh*tshop and plant it as close to the pond as you can. My pond-owning friend says this works, but don't blame me if it doesn't.

 

Finally I ain't got a clue what a cooked one might taste like, but having observed their diet and habits at first hand I'd guess: roughly the same as a Pike - which I have eaten, several times, but that's another story.

 

Should really save this for another thread, but if you just use the centre section you can eat it bone-in. And, man, if you slowly poach it with chilli, garlic... I'll post it on ProgChefs Unite later after all

 

People who keep saying 'You know' when they are speaking. It gets right on my wick. No! I don't know! Which is why I am asking you, numpty! Whatever happened to Erm?

 

Coincidently, I saw a heron in Wakefield this morning flying along the river. Nothing in its beak as far as I could see  .

 

I went to a dyslexic rave recently and I saw a heron addict shooting up.