Animal hypnosis

If you've ever wanted to know how to hypnotize a bird, well, just take a look at this video! I'm not sure why exactly you would want to do it, but I think I'd feel more comfortable trying it on a pigeon or chicken than an alligator!

Taxidermy pigeon lights

A chandelier made from 20 stuffed pigeons. Image courtesy of Treehugger.

We all know pigeons, of the feral variety, get a bad press, with many regarding them as no more than "rats with wings".  But even if you think the only good pigeon is a dead one, would you consider having them stuffed and turned into lighting fixtures to hang from your ceiling?

Me neither.

I first discovered this bizarre, and somewhat morbid, concept in a recent issue of the Sunday Times Style magazine. Apparently the taxidermy lights are the brainchild of the designer Alex Randall of Jericho Hands (who undertakes commissions just in case you were thinking of turning your award-winning exhibition budgerigar into something similar).

Kenya Cretegny, who has a set of taxidermy pigeon lights hanging in her boutique on Marylebone High Street, describes them as "something that's really edgy but also beautiful and soft". 

I love birds, but I think this is pushing things just a little too far, don't you?

You can see more images of other "taxidermy lights", including a duck and a squirrel, on the Treehugger website. Be prepared to be awe-struck.

Bird brain council fines pensioner for feeding pigeons

The problem with common sense is that it's not actually that common. Just ask Michelina Roy. Michelina is a 70-year-old woman who loves nothing better than taking a stroll to her local park in Heckmondike, West Yorkshire, to feed the birds. Recently, she was fined £75 for doing so. She couldn't believe it, but it seems that's the way of it these days. Without wishing to get too political here, we have murderers who get sent to prison for "life" and are set free a few years later. The miserly prison sentences given to the likes of muggers and rapists would be laughable if it wasn't so terribly serious - and that's if they're even sent to prison. Yet the powers that be saw fit to land a pensioner with hefty fine during the credit crunch for caring for birds. How hard can it be to see the simple difference between littering and feeding crumpets to birds? Too hard for some it would seem! But just when I thought the world had completely gone down the toilet, Kirklees Council decided to quash the fine. Tax payers money well spent? I think not.

What do you keep in your pants?

Actually, don't answer that. But take a look at this...a chap who shoved pigeons down his tights and tried to smuggle them into Australia from Dubai. He was also trying to smuggle two eggs in a vitamin container. With Australia being very strict on the importation of wildlife, the 23-year-old now faces up to ten years in jail.