4b4 Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Ok - now completed two Saturday roosts and I don't think I've ever seen fewer pigeon. I've shot 4 and 3 respectively, and compared with the same Saturdays last year (53 & 49) and the previous year (41 & 43), I'm seriously considering skipping the rest of February!. It's not just me though, as we're a syndicate and we had 10 people out each day spread over our six woods, and we've had 23 and 29 in total for the days - with everybody reporting the same lack of birds about. Having read various other threads, I know there seems to be generally fewer around, but is it just my area of Suffolk that's EMPTY? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter.123 Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Where are you in Suffolk? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 I don't think the general consensus is that there is a lack of pigeons around. The worry seemed to be that pigeons were not on the rape ( a few weeks back) and that they had disappeared entirely. As many of us know, they were just in woods etc with no need to bother with the rape. I see pigeons on at least half of the rape fields i drive past. My mate has just picked up another farm to shoot on which i've seen flocks in the region of 5000 birds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anser2 Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 (edited) In North Norfolk wood pigeons have been a steep decline for the past 3 years. I shoot over 7000 acres and my annunal bag used to be 2-3000 a year. In the last 3 years its dropped to a couple of hundred. There is little change in cropping rotation. Roost shoots that use to produce 20-50 birds a night are now producing a handful , if I am lucky. I have a dozen woods covering 1000 acres , many of oak and beech and though the pigeons were present up to christmas in fair numbers ( bags of up to 15 a day ) , they are no longer using them. Four hours yesterday produced 3 birds. I have 16 rape fields scattered over the area I shoot and none held pigeons yesterday morning. Only one flock of pigeons was found , about 200 on cut maze and they departed as soon as I stoped the car , not to reapear for the next couple of hours. In all I notched up 54 miles checking fields and only that one flock seen and only a handful of singles sitting in roadside trees. During the spring I undertake a bird survey over 300 acres of woodland and the number of breeding wood pigeon pairs has dropped from 80 in 2007 to 35 in 2011. I have talked to a number of pigeon shooters in my area and the best roost shoot bag i have heard of is 30. Over the years I have come to expect bad years along with the good ones , but I have never known a run of three bad years on the trot. My ground is not over shot as over half of it I am the only pigeon shooter allowed and I do not shoot wood pigeons between April and August. Maybe its time we started to regard wood pigeons as a propper game bird and thought about a closed season. Edited February 15, 2012 by anser2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deny essex Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Not in my part of Essex today either , great wind and weather for decoying today but seems the birds didnt know that :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaxiDriver Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Annoyingly there's loads of the pee taking blighters in the woods/trees surrounding my house, and in our communial car park area wandering around and pecking about. Same down the allotment site too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpk Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Seen a few this afternoon and am planning to have a go tomorrow fingers crossed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vampire Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 See plenty of pigeons every week,flocks of upto 500 birds and roosting in the woods,a handfull of shots in the woods and thats the last we see of em,walk em off a field of rape which they are and have been feeding on for a few weeks now and they may come back once if your lucky,best bag i have heard of in recent weeks is 30 birds. Spring drillings and young birds will change our fortunes soon,these old birds are to wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaxiDriver Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 I've heard Suffolk Pigeons are as rare as hide poles :yp: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vampire Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 I've heard Suffolk Pigeons are as rare as hide poles :yp: and seats :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaxiDriver Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 and seats :lol: oooooo touche sir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmerguy.22 Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 We seem to have a lot of pigeons about in the old newton area, just as many as in past years. They are just harder to decoy around our area due to the abundance of rape about, over 250acres all on fields next to each other. We are constantly scaring large flocks of our fields in the morning and also in the evening as they are on there way back to roost. The past 2 weekends they have been roost shooting in my neighbours 60acre great wood and 3 or 4 smaller woods around it and i have heard plenty of bangs but have no idea on the numbers shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yickdaz Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 I don't think the general consensus is that there is a lack of pigeons around. The worry seemed to be that pigeons were not on the rape ( a few weeks back) and that they had disappeared entirely. As many of us know, they were just in woods etc with no need to bother with the rape. I see pigeons on at least half of the rape fields i drive past. My mate has just picked up another farm to shoot on which i've seen flocks in the region of 5000 birds. yep exactly that motty i was one of the posters saying nothing much around our area on the rape,from mid oct up to end of jan ,then bang they just appeared almost everywhere on the rape within 20 miles of where i live Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamiewa Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 I've just secured 200 acres which have some wooded boarders in sussex. Taken me ages to find somewhere and after a great season on the pheasants I was looking forward to some pigeon shooting..Went out tonight, fired three shots but other than that pretty much nothing about. Went last Saturday as well all day and didn't even fire a shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitnmiss Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 They have been very slow coming over from eastern euorope this year as it hasn't been as cold, you should see larger numbers now as is it's been cold for a few weeks, unless they're going to stick it out this year as times getting on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4b4 Posted February 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 Hi Sharpshooter - our shoot is in the Glemsford/Long Melford area and, although there are birds about on the numerous rape fields, they don't seem to be using our woods like they have in previous years. Having said that, the woods are still full of pigeon ****, so I'm now thinking that they may have just been roosting elsewhere over the cold snap. We're out again this Saturday, so I guess I'll find out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motty Posted February 16, 2012 Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 In North Norfolk wood pigeons have been a steep decline for the past 3 years. I shoot over 7000 acres and my annunal bag used to be 2-3000 a year. In the last 3 years its dropped to a couple of hundred. There is little change in cropping rotation. Roost shoots that use to produce 20-50 birds a night are now producing a handful , if I am lucky. I have a dozen woods covering 1000 acres , many of oak and beech and though the pigeons were present up to christmas in fair numbers ( bags of up to 15 a day ) , they are no longer using them. Four hours yesterday produced 3 birds. I have 16 rape fields scattered over the area I shoot and none held pigeons yesterday morning. Only one flock of pigeons was found , about 200 on cut maze and they departed as soon as I stoped the car , not to reapear for the next couple of hours. In all I notched up 54 miles checking fields and only that one flock seen and only a handful of singles sitting in roadside trees. During the spring I undertake a bird survey over 300 acres of woodland and the number of breeding wood pigeon pairs has dropped from 80 in 2007 to 35 in 2011. I have talked to a number of pigeon shooters in my area and the best roost shoot bag i have heard of is 30. Over the years I have come to expect bad years along with the good ones , but I have never known a run of three bad years on the trot. My ground is not over shot as over half of it I am the only pigeon shooter allowed and I do not shoot wood pigeons between April and August. Maybe its time we started to regard wood pigeons as a propper game bird and thought about a closed season. I don't know whereabouts you shoot, Anser, but i was at Great Snoring this morning (less than 10 miles from Wells) and i saw thousands of pigeons there. I imagine they had been disturbed from the many cover strips there. One of the flocks i estimated to be around 2,500. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BertieLeBlanc Posted February 16, 2012 Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 I was out yesterday in the Stowmarket area and although there are pigeons about they were not on the Rape, they appeared to be flying between woods so perhaps they are feeding there? Going to try their roost this afternoon so perhaps I will have more luck there. A few weeks ago they were all over the Rape but not since the snow. Perhaps they don't like getting muddy feet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anser2 Posted February 16, 2012 Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 (edited) Motty I shoot within a couple of miles of Snoring and I drove through the village yesterday from Wells to Barney and just saw a couple of birds in the hedgerows. Checked 16 fields of rape and not a single bird on any of them. However i did get a call from one of my farmers saying there was a few birds on one field this morning so having a look in the morning. Edited February 16, 2012 by anser2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpk Posted February 16, 2012 Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 Well I can safely say they are not here, managed 2 ferals today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogrun Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 Ok - now completed two Saturday roosts and I don't think I've ever seen fewer pigeon. I've shot 4 and 3 respectively, and compared with the same Saturdays last year (53 & 49) and the previous year (41 & 43), I'm seriously considering skipping the rest of February!. It's not just me though, as we're a syndicate and we had 10 people out each day spread over our six woods, and we've had 23 and 29 in total for the days - with everybody reporting the same lack of birds about. Having read various other threads, I know there seems to be generally fewer around, but is it just my area of Suffolk that's EMPTY? Hi there,a friend of mine went to nottingham last week he past a field of rape and said if was a thousand there were 20 thousand,he said he have never seen so many pigeons in his life,never mined their's a cold snap coming again we might be lucky, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alanl50 Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) I was out hanging rope bangers for the farmer today apart from when the snow was here sod all about, yesterday I noticed a couple of flocks 40-50ish sitting on the edge in the trees on a couple of fields, when I went round this morning they were all over the rape over 100ish on one field and well over 100 on each of the others fields, I put a shot up and they just moved around they definitely wanted to come back so fingers crossed we have launch mission control. I have been round and checked my hides and I just taken 10 frozen pigeons out to defrost for tomorrow. I know there will probaly be f - all tomorrow Alan Edited February 17, 2012 by Alanl50 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anser2 Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Well back from a morning on the rape a couple of miles away from Gt Snoring. I was on a fields of about 40 acres of rape with a large 1000 acre wood on 2 sides and a large wood 1\4 a mile away to the south. Saw 4 flocks and a few odd birds all high and distant totaling 60 pigeons. Had one iffy shot more to see if the bang stired up anything , it did not. Thats it for me for pigeons for a few days. The wildfowling season is comming for a close so I am going to be spending the next few days below the sea wall after a few pink feet. Edited February 17, 2012 by anser2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marsh Pig Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 I don't know whereabouts you shoot, Anser, but i was at Great Snoring this morning (less than 10 miles from Wells) and i saw thousands of pigeons there. I imagine they had been disturbed from the many cover strips there. One of the flocks i estimated to be around 2,500. Have seen those pigeons in snoring to they where on the sugarbeet stubble at the time. sadly no permision there..... YET! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marsh Pig Posted February 17, 2012 Report Share Posted February 17, 2012 Well back from a morning on the rape a couple of miles away from Gt Snoring. T was on a fields of about 40 acres of rape with a large 1000 acre wood on 2 sides and a large wood 1\4 a mile away to the south. Saw 4 flocks and a few odd birds all high and distant totaling 60 pigeons. Had one iffy shot more to see if the bang stired up anything , it did not. Thats it for me for pigeons for a few days. The wildfowling season is comming for a close so I am going to be spending the next few days below the sea wall after a few pink feet. Good luck after those pinks anser2. I to will be making the most of the last days of the wildfowling season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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