| Forum: | Castles In General & Medieval History |
| Topic: | watch birds |
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thinking about watch birds, I thought these were geese at first but it turns out that swans are the mean ones. check out the nuisance reports. Doesn't the queen of England have some sort of swan ceremony? fletching's a good thought though. I wonder what they taste like? I think as guard animals, it's more a matter of purpose. Dogs are good at being selective about who comes in or out, and they come in very handy around the gates, but breeding, and raising good dogs can take quite a bit of time and effort. Wild gees, or swans, or any other wild critter that breeds conveniently, and is reasonbly ornery about some place would make good guards in places you don't want ANYONE hanging around. The outer walls of the castle probably did not require much maintenance, and in places far from the gates, guard birds, or guard snakes, or guard box turtles, or whatever make perfect sense. Of course, without PETA around, getting in these areas on occasion is no major problem for a castle, you just get a few bows and arrows from the armory, and serve fowl at the banquets for a couple nights. It's nothing a medieval peasant or noble would loose sleep about, but most everyone would hear it happen. As for migration... my encyclopedia says geese migrate from Canada to Georgia, but I know plenty of parks and golf courses that have them staying year round. A nice pond or moat might suit swans just as well. As a lord, you might spend most of your time in specific garments, on specific horses, so the falcon would probably recognize you, but teaching a falcon to kill a human seems like a bad idea to me. Generally, you teach it to kill an animal, then you let it go, and it sails around, and kills the first thing it sees. Train one to kill people, and it probably won't know which ones you want alive. It might be good against spies, but if the falcon needs to be told when to hunt, you have to know there are spies about before it is any use to you. Of course, peasants in the area could get rather upset if they learned their lord had trained a falcon to kill people, and that's why so and so isn't around anymore. Teaching a falcon to fight in battle strikese me as even more troublesome. The falcon has to actually touch it's enemies to kill, and giving it armor is not an option. Any force with a few archers would probably put an end to that falcon's career. This is probably more of a problem with falcons, since geese, or swans require no training investment. Likewise, as far as guard animals go, a dog, which generally also requires training could be armored, and sometimes was. [This message has been edited by Maria (edited 02-05-2006).] ------------------bent one www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/afcmuteplan.html bent one it does say that they're a eurasian species, do you think that they were ever used by medieval people? Steve-O-Gerst Well, they get used in fairy tales a lot, and swan feathers can also be used for fletching, so... I guess, yeah. Maria When you say used by medieval people, what do you have in mind? Maria It says on wikipedia that the eurasian swan migrates from Rusia to Britain. bent one I was thinking like a gaurd animal. you'd put them in areas where you didn't want people trespassing. from that article they are fiercly territorial. Maria Well the problem with having them as guards is you can't control them. They just defend their teritory, and don't stop to distinguish your people from the enemy. You're all trespassing. And it's far too complicated, making them change nesting places. A dog would do the trick easier. Steve-O-Gerst I believe swan meat is pretty good. I may have read somewhere that it did show up on the menu, but don't quote me on that. Maria If we are to talk watch birds, why not think of hawks? Much more effective than swans, I assume. I know they trained them for hunting, but I'm not sure about how effective they would be in battle. Steve-O-Gerst Well, I hear that hawks, or falcons, or some such bird, could break your neck, but getting them to attack a human would require some special training to even come near such a large target. Maria Ok, lets get things right.
Hawks are used for hunting. There's a whole medieval tradition attached to this. They weren't used in battles (or at least I wasn't able to trace any information about this).
Swans and geese are completely out of the question. The only proof we've come across is the story of Rome, in which the geese accidentaly gave the alarm (but didn't participate).
Swans are dangerous against old women and unarmed couples, but medieval battles included heavy armed men.
Perhaps we ought to do some research (only because this hipotetical talk seems to have no serious base to me).Maria Falcon or Hawk - One eager or hot in the pursuit of an object much desired.
Swan - A lover of poetry and harmony.
This is the medieval heraldic symbolism atached to the two birds. Clearly there must have been a reason. Pieboy Just use a dog
Pieboy
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