Stiff Mallards

the Balintore brace of Mallards

The area around Balintore Castle is often used for shooting, and occasionally the game keeper or shooting agent asks me to show their guests around the building. I am of course delighted to do so.

After one such tour, a lovely Dutch couple presented me with a brace of Mallard by way of a thank-you. It is a mistake to think that shooters are portly, middle-aged men, with florid complexions in tweeds. It was an education to find out that shooters do not, in general, look like they shoot. :-)

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were tied together at the neck by string, and I placed them over a door key in the kitchen wing. I took a photo. The image was a beautiful Hogarthian study in Chiaroscuro (see above). The kitchen wing was like a fridge at that time of year, and I knew you could "hang" birds for about 12 days to develop the flavour.

Mallards are amongst my favourite birds. I think of them as the Jack Russell of the duck world. They are colourful, small and lively and the joyous quack they make sounds like they are laughing.

I have been informed that to save plucking or eviscerating fowl, you can simply cut the breasts out. Mallards are renowned for their large breasts, and if you want to increase the breast meat in a strain of duck you introduce some Mallard. :-)

So breast excision is what I was planning to do. Only, I had not done this before, and was somewhat trepidatious. To be honest, I kept putting this off. As day 12 approached, I was genuinely going to do the deed, then some emergency arose and I didn't. Finally, it came to the morning I was going to leave the castle and drive to England. Packing took longer than expected and there was no more time left to process the mallards. What could I do? I contemplated strapping them in to the passenger seat of the car, but worried about them honking, in the soundless sense, during the long journey as temperatures rose to those of England.

I would have to bury them. Now I hate wasting food, as my friends know, and it also felt like ingratitude for the gift but there was no alternative.

However, with the severe sub-zero temperatures the ground was rock hard and I could not get a spade to break the surface. Suddenly, inspiration or at least lateral thinking hit.

There are plenty of rabbits around Balintore, and a rabbit hole is pre-dug! I selected a pair of choice rabbit holes, and inserted the rigid-frozen drake into one and the rigid frozen duck into the other. A light dusting of vegetation and the graves were hidden to the human eye.

It is left to the readers' imagination how much I traumatised the Balintore bunnies.