A tale of Trevor the Golden Duck, his pair of replacements, and a box that went "flap" from Ferrybridge services. MATT: / unnamedculprit - TOM: / tomscottgo
+BritishBookshelf well it really was kind of an accident. It started out as a prank, continued as a not-actually-serious campaign and ended in quite an impressive win.
*>Trenchcoat opens, many flapping wings and honking duck heads are revealed* "We got a twoferone deal on mallards, them's the pretty ones ya see with them green heads."
If you're in the heart of rural America, all you have to do is take a quick drive to the Tractor Supply Co. And get them for $5 to $1 depending if they're in season.
@@taylorbarrow453 It depends greatly on the breed for the price you pay. You can get turkeys there for a few bucks each as well. My family has a small flock of heritage turkeys that we sell for $20 each as chicks. Also fun fact if they were in the US they could have been mailed the ducks instead of having to go pick them up. The USPS has special regulations on mailing live adult poultry. If Tom thought it was odd picking up a box you know has two ducks in it imagine being a postal worker picking up a random package then it starts to move and quake. We order day old chicks through the mail every year. Its always fun as the post office will call you at like 2 am letting you know they are in and please pick them up now. They are to scared they might hurt them that they will let you collect them as soon as they arrive at the office no matter the time.
@@bobothn Much the same effect happens with a box of mice. People who work in certain life science specialties get shipped boxes of mice - imagine a pizza box with a lot more skittering and a hundred lab mice eager to escape into your car or office.
@@bobothn Don't know if it's true anymore but who knows and I don't have need to find out, but it at least used to be that you could send queen bees even trough international mail. So every country's mail system should accept queen bees from overboard to be delivered in their country. The reason that I think it might not be true anymore is that UPS has revoked many parts of international mail ordnance in last twenty years. For example it used to be that a letter from other country should be delivered if the address is unique. Now it is that in some countries they can say: If the address is not in our database forget it. That would have been an outrage in 90's but not anymore.
-Why aren't there any ducks? -I don't know, there's never any ducks. -Then how do you know it's a duck pond? -It just is -Doctor Who - The Eleventh Hour
+Matt and Tom The anagram of "matt gray" that you didn't mention, was it "gray twat", or "ratty wag", or "tarty wag", or possibly even "warty tag"? Lol
A declawed cat has an increased chance of arthritis later in life. I feel bad because my wonderful kitty had to go through that. And based on the reaction of Matt, it seems like the declawing of cats isn't a thing in the UK. That's good.
@Poshboy @Mojos Bigstick Yep, there's a difference between Pinioning and Clipping Their Feathers, if you clip their feather's they regrow and you have to get them clipped every few months to keep them from being able to fly, but Pinioning is permanent :(
Ex-Chair of York People and Planet (the year _after_ though, so it wasn't on my watch ;-) ). It had genuinely never occurred to me how they stopped the ducks flying off. I guess I assumed that they just really liked the lake, but even as I type that it rapidly sounds less and less plausible.
I was fine just giggling all the way through. Then I took a sip of tea just as Matt decided on "wasis" as the proper conjugation for "to be" at indeterminate time, and now I've got tea in my nose.
This is me being fine not laughing at the video early in the morning, not wanting to wake up anyone, and then not being able to stop it at that exact moment.
Someone might find it quite odd, but I happen to stumble upon the actual web article of the golden duck story in The Yorker, their alma mater's old school paper website. "Scott collected the ducks from Ferrybridge yesterday, from their breeder John Hall. They were released into the lake late yesterday afternoon. Though Scott had originally planned a large 'In-Duck-Tion' for the shelducks, for the sake of their welfare yesterday’s ceremony was a small one." Apparently, he have now forgotten to recall that "In-Duck-Tion" part, nevertheless, I enjoyed his recollection of the event.
I had some friends at York uni around 1990. Apparently, at that time, a site rule was passed that eating the campus ducks was a chuck-out-able offence. Apparently one of the foreign students was found to be catching and cooking them.
I was at Birmingham at the end of the 90s and it was a local legend that Chris Tarrant was disciplined for eating one of the geese on the lake while studying there.
The reason that the ducks have their wings clipped is that they are exotic species - ie not native to the UK - and if they could fly away, they might end up going feral. And we have too many feral exotics in this country already, starting with rabbits.
That has to be the dumbest thing I ever heard. If you are afraid of feral ducks you would have to neuter them. I hope this doesn't shock you but non-flying birds can still mate. Don't you know their offspring would be able to fly ?
@@zippymcfearson2776 Don't you know you're capable of monitoring animal behaviour and thus act accordingly when needed? Invasive species are a thing. Look it up, stupid.
@@donaldasayers Only the absence from the fossil record and the fact that when they were introduced by the Normans they were so ill suited to the climate that people (called warreners) were employed to look after them
I have spent months trying to figure out why I recognise you and I finally know why. I remember this event with the Golden Ducks. I also remember one of the ducks flying away and never returning...
So, being from the south of the USA, I have a pool. And one spring, a mother duck laid her eggs in the bushes by said pool. I got to see about thirteen ducklings in my pool and it was a one of the best things ever.
Clipping wings is kind of equivalent to cutting your nails or hair. De-clawing a cat, as Tom said, is equivalent to chopping the end of your finger off.
My family nursed a wild duckling back to health. It then lived in and around our backyard pool. It migrated for the winter but came back and started a family. We moved away from that house but last we checked there were still ducks using that backyard as a seasonal home.
Tom: "You can get a duck for 60 quid." Me in rural New Jersey who can walk down the street to the hardware store and get one for less than 5 bucks: Hm, interesting.
I walked from Borehamwood town centre to Shenley a while back but I didn't come across this area. I'll have to go there again someday and check it out.
4:28 "He takes out a box of duck" What Tom meant to say was "He takes out a box of ducks" Mass vs count noun in English, something Tom mentioned in citation needed
You never did confirm whether the Duck Dealer's car was (or was not) a Volvo! I clearly lack important things to think about because I would like to know!
I’m guessing that a decent number of people only clip the ducks’ wing feathers once and then choose to not re-trim the flight feathers again after the birds have settled in.
Fab video Tom. Just a correction - ornamental ducks don't have to be pinioned, though it is strongly advised and it is considered a criminal offence to release ornamental species into the uk. Therefore, pinioning for free range birds is virtually mandatory for such releasing. Not all will be pinioned though - many that instead live in large aviaries will remain full winged. Just thought you'd like to know!
I heard the quiet wind noise in the back and saw your hair almost being ripped out of your heads. That is an amazing microphone, gotta say. Also, I'm starting to like this channel even more than Tom's main channel. (Ignoring citation needed, that's too much of an unfair advantage)
HEY CLARIFICATION ON PINIONED DUCKS: pinioning is NOT the same as clipping. Clipping means cutting the ends of the feathers, pinioning means removing the pinion joint (similar to removing all of our fingers except the thumb). So the comparison to declawing is appropriate, but pinioning is actually more extreme than declawing. Birds that are "clipped" will molt and regrow their feathers. Birds that are pinioned will never fly again. It's really very unfortunate, but does make sense if you're releasing a bird that you don't want to wander, like a non-native species
