Increasing Woodie Population

[Blunderbuss]

Interesting article by a bloke from the BTO in todays ST. The gist is huge woodpigeon population increases across most of UK. Examples, 1995 to 2008: Yorkshire + 84%; London +72%; SW +37%; NI +71% etc, etc. Only Scotland was down and then only by 2%.

 

The thing I found interesting was that after these increases the UK population is still only 3 million breeding pairs. I'm sure I've read much higher estimates than that in the past. I'm sure it was in either John Humphries' or John Batley's book where up to 20 million (birds not pairs ISTR) was suggested?

 

If its "only" 3 million pairs, it surprises me that the population is increasing so much, with the rise in popularity of decoying. Has anyone seen an "official" estimate of how many are shot annually? You lot need to pull your fingers out!

Edited June 9, 2011 by Blunderbuss

[Catamong]

Interesting article by a bloke from the BTO in todays ST. The gist is huge woodpigeon population increases across most of UK. Examples, 1995 to 2008: Yorkshire + 84%; London +72%; DE +37%; NI +71% etc, etc. Only Scotland was down and then only by 2%.

 

The thing I found interesting was that after these increases the UK population is still only 3 million breeding pairs. I'm sure I've read much higher estimates than that in the past. I'm sure it was in either John Humphries' or John Batley's book where up to 20 million (birds not pairs ISTR) was suggested?

 

If its "only" 3 million pairs, it surprises me that the population is increasing so much, with the rise in popularity of decoying. Has anyone seen an "official" estimate of how many are shot annually? You lot need to pull your fingers out!

 

The fact is the Woodie population has increased over the last 20 or 30 years due to, (amongst other things):

 

1. Massive areas of Oilseed rape, which provide a Winter food source.

2. Lack of "severe" Winter weather, i.e. prolonged snow cover for 6 weeks plus, very few birds now die from Winter starvation.

3. The birds ability to adapt, and move into Urban areas, (I've got plenty in my back garden, they wouldn't have been there 25 years ago).

 

Cat.

[Blunderbuss]

Car, they listed most of your reasons, but also a big increase in garden bird feeding. If your feeding birds in your garden but you don't want woodies, apparently you need the dearer feed which is small seed and not bulked out with cereal grains.

[yickdaz]

Interesting article by a bloke from the BTO in todays ST. The gist is huge woodpigeon population increases across most of UK. Examples, 1995 to 2008: Yorkshire + 84%; London +72%; DE +37%; NI +71% etc, etc. Only Scotland was down and then only by 2%.

 

The thing I found interesting was that after these increases the UK population is still only 3 million breeding pairs. I'm sure I've read much higher estimates than that in the past. I'm sure it was in either John Humphries' or John Batley's book where up to 20 million (birds not pairs ISTR) was suggested?

 

If its "only" 3 million pairs, it surprises me that the population is increasing so much, with the rise in popularity of decoying. Has anyone seen an "official" estimate of how many are shot annually? You lot need to pull your fingers out!

they say only 3 million breeding pairs,which is a load of you know what...

so going off that theres only 6 million adult woodies in the country..

coupled with the fact they are breeding all year round,how can they keep a tally of every single wood pigeon nest throughout britain every month of the year, as cat says i have a pair nesting in my back garden but nobody has knocked on my door asking to ring them or log them down on a survey, they are thriving from what i see and shoot..but thats just my take on things

i don,t know the actual figure that we shoot,ie pigeon shooters, but archie coates once said its in the millions each year. but around 23,000 shot on pigeon watch by average over the last 5 years,thats only members on here putting there tally on here god only knows how many decoyers shoot thousands per year but don,t log them on PW.

Edited June 8, 2011 by yickdaz

[Highlander]

Bird surveys (like most surveys)are by nature flawed and it’s very difficult to accurately know the true numbers. However some scientific rather than random estimates have been done.

 

This (much reduced) extract is from a BASC survey conducted during the 1980’s.

 

‘Use of the somewhat arbitrary correction factor 0.7 which is explained in Harradine (1985) suggests the total annual membership bag may vary between 2.0 and 4.4 million woodpigeons’.

 

This from a 1980’s survey of BASC members only and there were a lot less of them (members) then than now!

 

Earlier last century back in the ‘60’s ‘The Major’ confirmed in one of his writings MAFF’s figures of over 2 million woodpigeons going for export each year.

 

Now given that we must be shooting more birds now than then simply on the basis of the numbers of shooters who claim to do so and if you accept that numbers of birds are on the increase (and that is open for debate) then simply to maintain such ‘cull’ levels even taking these out of date figures we’d need a breeding population of at least 3 times that just to maintain the status quo i.e. possibly 6 million breeding pairs. Based on Dr Mertons average figures of only 1 surviving young bird per pair per year. Yes they can breed 3 times per year and have two young each time but on average only 1 chick survives to breed, apparently.

 

I have 3 pairs of woodpigeon that have bred in our garden each year for the last 5/6 years (are they the same ones or previous years young or different birds? I wish I knew!) but I’ve never seen them breed more than twice per year.

 

I personally don’t think the population is increasing and may well be falling. Certainly this BTO estimate falls far short of earlier estimates even though they claim an increase! 3 million breeding pairs that only produce 1 surviving chick per year isn’t even maintaining what we (probably) shoot. Are they trying to fool us into hunting Woody to extinction so they can call for a ban on shooting by wicked hunters! :o

Edited June 9, 2011 by Highlander

[M ROBSON]

They say the Scottish population has decreased, Scotland is a very big place and I can't comment on other areas but here in the East Central region the population certainly has NOT declined in the last 10 years, it's on the up.

 

One fugure that made me laugh (and undermines the whole article) is the estimate of 250,000 feral pigeons in the UK You could quite easily get that in this area alone!!!

 

Mark.

Edited June 9, 2011 by M ROBSON

[yickdaz]

They say the Scottish population has decreased, Scotland is a very big place and I can't comment on other areas but here in the East Central region the population certainly has NOT declined in the last 10 years, it's on the up.

 

just looking at the bags you post on here would back that up

[tignme]

West of Scotland numbers are definately up,35 years ago i was lucky to make bags of 10s to 12s locally,my average locally now is 25, not big bags hence why i go elsewhere and the average jumps to 60. I was watching out for a roe two nights ago and saw 50 to 60 young woodies feeding on clover. on the spring drill we were seeing 200 young birds.

[chrispti]

I just wonder what the long term affects of the increasing Woodie population will be, with shooters cutting back/ being priced out, because of the likes of cartridge prices rocketing etc etc

 

I think the days of paying to shoot woodies will soon be over and farm permissions will be opening up,

Edited June 9, 2011 by chrispti

[Blunderbuss]

I just wonder what the long term affects of the increasing Woodie population will be, with shooters cutting back/ being priced out, because of the likes of cartridge prices rocketing etc etc

 

I think the days of paying to shoot woodies and farm permissions opening up are not far off

 

Don't quite get the logic of that, unless I've misread your post. In that scenario, if there were more woodies, and less people willing to shoot them due to costs, surely that would make having to pay to shoot them less likely? Surely farmers would be keener to attract some of the few remaining shooters to tackle the greater crop damage caused by more birds? I think we're a long way off that though.

Edited June 9, 2011 by Blunderbuss

[chrispti]

Don't quite get the logic of that, unless I've misread your post. In that scenario, if there were more woodies, and less people willing to shoot them due to costs, surely that would make having to pay to shoot them less likely? Surely farmers would be keener to attract some of the few remaining shooters to tackle the greater crop damage caused by more birds? I think we're a long way off that though.

 

Sorry, my fault, I have edited my post.

Edited June 9, 2011 by chrispti

[Blunderbuss]

Sorry, my fault, I have edited my post.

 

[motty]

I personally think that pigeon numbers are on the up. Some farmers i've spoken to say they've never seen so many pigeons as there are around at the moment. One game dealer says he's never been so busy on pigeons.

As for numbers shot, one game dealer says that they are processing 3000 pigeons per day during summer.