JDog

Following the family tradition of being 'amateur' at most things my nephew Ryan Hatch won the Kim Muir Handicap Chase at Cheltenham today on a horse trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies. The ride was however anything but amateur.

And if a buddy called you to say that there were a great deal of pigeons on some spring drillings would you desert your post?

If it is not structural then it maybe thermal shock.

Good effort. That will save a few song birds this spring.

If it is the pneumatic suspension one there seems to be problems on a regular basis.

'Here Lemon'.

Good effort. Finding an outlet for so many birds is sometimes difficult. You will cringe though when you see that the pubs are selling pigeons as starters for £6:95.

Some may say that a bonfire of the lot of them would be a better idea. I couldn't possibly comment.

Having joined Pigeon Watch last summer I realised that there were a lot of keen pigeon shooters out there who got out very rarely. All sorts of factors came into play, noticably time constraints, work and family etc. I am lucky to have a lot of land to shoot over and I decided to take some PW members out this winter and spring. There were always pigeons where I took the PW members but I still had the heebeegeebees about seeing a few decoy and provide sport for those less fortunate. We had bags of 93, 87, 67 and 62 but I still felt under pressure. Numbers are never a certainty. Good for you Tightchoke.

I was thinking the same myself. Tightchoke is putting himself under some pressure to provide sport which is difficult when wild birds are involved.

No need for him to lick it - it sounds as though he may already be infected.

Which just goes to show that pigeons are on different food stuffs in different areas of the country, which is normal I would suggest.

I have said it before in response to one of your previous posts but you do live in a very special place with countryside like that which is perfect for quarry species of all types.

Good job. Are they the lesser spotted variety of carrion crow?

Sorry Fenboy but on reflection I have hijacked your pike fishing thread. I should have started my own entitled.......' A ridiculous catch for an ill-deserving fisherman'.

Great pictures of good catches of pike there. I had one day of a lifetime fishing for salmon in Cumbria many years ago. I caught 12 fish on the fly, the largest was 19.25 lbs. I am quite convinced that it was a trout!

With two days of arctic conditions pigeons have not been able to get at loose seeds on the surface and rape leaves have become distinctly unpalateable. Driving round today I noticed that a lot of pigeons had gone back onto Ivy berries. I suspect that they will stay on them until the weather warms up and decoying will be difficult for a while.

So what is it? My guess is a female Sparrow Hawk.

Some I know would get rid of the child. In this instance I feel that the dog will always have this behavioural trait.

I had a call from a farmer telling me that his peas had been drilled last week and that there were pigeons in the fields. This is the earliest I have ever known peas to be drilled around the Cotswolds. Sadly I was on family duties this weekend in Yorkshire and in order to keep the farmer happy I asked a trusted friend if he would like to go and shoot today. He accepted and he called me this afternoon to say that he was still in the field having finished shooting and he had shot 119 pigeons.

Have one of the black ones! Have you decided on a name yet?

There will be no spilt grain from 'last summer's hay'.

I suspect that one of the worst things that could happen would be if you changed your mind about the marriage whilst you were away.

One thing I failed to mention in last weekends post about shooting on spring drillings was about feeding times. On rape over winter pigeons stock up with full crops when they can, often three times a day. Now that they are feeding on drillings they do not need to feed so often. Last Saturday we put several hundred birds off the field when we arrived at midday and very few returned. Those that did came from a long way back and all were stuffed full of wheat from the fields we were shooting. I know that they had not been elsewhere because no other farm in the area ever drills spring wheat and certainly no one has this spring. The point is that they all had full crops when we shot them and they did not need to come back to the field to feed. The crop fulls of wheat would do them more good than several crop fulls of rape leaves. Therefore shoot the fields early in the day before they have satisfied themselves with the new seed.