Gamekeeper's Gibbets

[gyrtrash]

Anyone know about gamekeeper's gibbets? I recently came across this bird partly hidden in a hedge, whilst walking the valleys around the Howgill Fells.
Is it typical of a gamekeeper's gibbet?
It wasn't in plain view, and the body was alone, near a farm. There seems to be some nifty skewering of the birds beak with a thorn too? The bodies of animals I've usually noticed being hung out to deter 'vermin' have always been several at a time, and strung out in plain view, usually along a fence.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v480/ ... wHead2.jpg


(Apologies if you're eating whilst surfing :lol: )



Cheers
Dave

 

[OldTimeRadio]

I've never before heard the phrase "gamekeepers' gibbet," so I am still unclear as to whether this bird was hung out by a human agent to deter vermin (as I think the post intimates) or else whether the bird died as the result of an attack by another (non-human) predator.

But I do know of shrikes, so I have to ask why this can't be a result of an attack by that bird.

 

[gyrtrash]

Just had an email from a friend that I sent the pic to...

His first thought was that it could be the work of a shrike - except shrike are too small to take corvids.

His partner reckoned it might be a variation of an 'execution' by a community of rooks. Apparently they (usually) hang the offending member of their group by forcing their necks into the fork of a branch... :shock:
Anyone else heard of this?

 

[escargot]

I read that as giblets.
:shock:

note to self: get eyes tested.

Do gamekeepers/farmers really believe that displays of animal carcases will deter others?

I had this process explained to me by a kindly elder sister at a tender age ('The moles look up and say, oh no, there's our Fred, we'd better not dig up this field or we'll end up like him!') and have since begun to question it.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

This reminds me of a 19th Century American story I read several years back, but alas did not save to a file.

According to the tale farmers in Tennessee (as best I recall) were plagued by an exceptionally nasty male and female pair of mountain lions.

Eventually the male was killed and the farmers decided to do a crude taxidermy job on the corpse, believing that if they displayed it in its usual haunts the female would see it and be scared away. "Gee, the same thing could happen to me!"

What actually followed, according to the tale, is that the female cat stole the dead male and moved it back to her lair.

Over the ensuing weeks or even months she'd drag the mummy around with when when she hunted.

I don't know if I believe this story or not, but it's surely strange, and it certainly fits the general theme of "gamekeepers' gibbets."

 

[tilly50]

Have there been any ABC sightings in that area? Some big cats drag there kill up trees as a sort of larder and I have seen a domestic moggy do the same, although a crow (is it a crow or a rook?) might be too big and aggresive for your average domestic cat.

 

[Anonymous]

Couldn't it just be kids messing about with a dead bird?

 

[gyrtrash]

Couldn't it just be kids messing about with a dead bird?

That thought did cross my mind. I would tend to think that more likely though if the body was closer to the nearest town or village, rather than on a track in the middle of the country that only leads to one farm. And if the bird was more easily visible, rather than partially hidden in the middle of a hedge.
Which is why I initially thought it was a gamekeeper's gibbet, but then it wouldn't be a very 'effective' example being obscured by the hedge, and is also atypical of one in that it uses just one corpse... :?

 

[maximus otter]

I used to have an acquaintance who was a gamekeeper. He had a most impressive gibbet.

I believe that the gibbet is more to assure the landowner that the gamekeeper is doing his job, than it is to scare off predators.

As to the corvid corpse in the picture, I'd speculate that kids or scavengers are a more Occam-y explanation for its position.

maximus otter

 

[LaurenChurchill]

I saw a seagull almost identical to that a few years back in a bush by the side of the road. I almost threw up my chips when I saw it :nooo:

Is the corvid execution story real then? I remember reading it in a novel a while back but I thought it was just something they made up to make the magpies seem cruel (they were the bad guys in this book).

 

[IamSundog]

Yes! Spontaneous language evolution in action!

Submitted to Merriam-Webster:

oc-ca-my ('ä-k&-mE) adj plausible; credible. e.g. "I'd speculate that kids or scavengers are a more occamy explanation".

 

[kirmildew]

When I worked in the grounds of a massive manor I found a string of six or seven magpie corpses hanging from an old redbrick garden wall, which seemed pretty pointless to me. It wasn't even in an area anybody would see unless they worked there. I like magpies, their reputation as baby bird murderers is a bit overdone.