We have just been to Brinkburn Priory, and were delighted to find a fair few flight primaries (the long pointy feathers, rather than round-ended ones) shed by crows in their moulting season there - my husband uses them to make the plucking part of harpsichords, and can never find enough. The best are raven quills, though I think the Tower of London Raven master gets rather a lot of requests for these: but what I was wondering was....if anyone knows of a good supply of these feathers, long black pointy ones from crows, would they be prepared either to let us know where they are, or even to send a few, to St Cecilia's Hall in Edinburgh? I'm asking now because it is the moulting season - or I'd have the animal rights lot down my throat thinking I was asking for people to shoot the birds, which I'm not....

My husband deals with antique instruments - modern makers use a plastic, delrin, for quilling jacks, but it really doesn't make as nice a sound as real feather, and in addition it damages the slots made for quills in jacks, because the slots usually are slightly curved to take a feather, and delrin quills are flat. The collection at St Cecilias is the biggest harpsichord and early keyboard collection in the UK now, and a substantial proportion of the instruments is in playing order, so it is a priceless resource and well worth the effort of using historically correct materials.

And if anyone has a pet raven, any moulted feathers from that would be sooooo fantastic to have .

Would goose feathers be of any use? Mine shed several each day.

Theres a sqaushed pigeon on the road near our house. I could scoop it up and post you it?
Hm, maybe not actually.

Or you could make a nice stew or even a pie. You're not legally allowed to take your own roadkill home but if someone else did it, fill your boots

Really?
Do you know any good pigeon recipes?

I'm more a fan of game to be honest. Apparently Wood Pigeon is ok, but if it's one of those flying rats that typically inhabit the town, I'd feel safer eating Arsenic

that's horrible

(I'm having a little break from my english essay which I'm working on at 6 minutes to midnight which is due in tomorrow and we've had a couple of months to do. Because I'm organised )

Get back to work!
I'll try stewing it in some rabbit stock, ill post some pictures tomorrow on another thread. It should be quite nice. Any way, this is getting a little Off Topic.

Incidently taken from anacrusis' profile
''Allergies: feathers''

I tried turning vegetarian once and failed miserably.

However I don't really eat red meat very much at all now. I avoid pork at all costs as I now know far too much about pigs I typically only eat fish, chicken or turkey these days.

ok, ok

I've just got to discuss how Claudio is foolish because he believes that Hero was unfaithful, then I'll be DONE!!!!

And then I've got to paint this big "I" green

Then off to beddy byes *yawn*




Yeah. I tried once too, and it was going really well! I'd been going for 2 or 3 months.

Then I went round to a friend's house, and she'd forgotten to tell her mum that I was suddenly vegetarian.
So her mum spent ages on a big spaghetti bolognaise.

We sat down to eat, and I hadn't realised, or even thought about it.
So I ate it.

Then halfway through the meal, my friend stopped talking, and was throwing me these weird glances.

Afterwards she apologised hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

It happened again and again with grandparents, aunts etc, because after the initial "I'm vegetarian!" phase, they all forgot.

We're supposed to be omnivores anyway (I cite the differing types of teeth we have) so it makes sense that turning vegetarian would be a difficult thing to do.

I found that I got quite lethargic while trying to be vegetarian. I hadn't done enough research when I did it so didn't realise that I'd be missing large chunks of my nutritional requirements by doing so... You need to find other ways of getting a decent amount of iron, for example, and I don't mean by drinking copious amounts of Guinness

Thanks for the replies so far - goose does work, but the last supply my husband had of those got attacked by moths, which reduce them to a revolting powder. He prefers to quill a single instrument in the same sort of feathers if he can - in the US they use turkey. Sea birds are no good, because any salt clinging to them will rust iron strings. I guess they go for crow because they are considered pests by farming communities, and because the black colour is a strong hint of the origins of feather. Goose is of course also the feather of choice for quill pens - something else my husband loves making (the method is remarkably similar to that for making harpsichord quills, as it happens...)

I don't much care for feathers, it's true, and usually send my husband outside to wash what he finds, then get him to take them to work as soon as possible, though the allergy referred to in my profile has more to do with bird-like chatter, which makes me grumpy.

I think that's only with species which are protected in the closed season, such as pheasant etc.

I think you may be right... to be honest I think it's an extremely difficult law to enforce and I don't know if I'd want to eat something that has been wedged in my radiator or wheel arch for quarter of a mile anyway

At least it would be cooked.

If anyone does have a pet raven, please can I come and visit you and have a cuddle [with the raven, not the owner]? Please? Please, please, please, please, please...

....and should the owner feel left out, I'm happier cuddling them than the raven

Ravens are amazingly clever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrYPm6DD44M

Rooks are, too:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8059688.stm

Enjoy