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Desperate times....lack of birds


ditchman
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am i just unlucky or are others suffering the lack of sport.....have been driving over my 3 areas of shooting in the last 3 mths and have not seen anything worth setting up for.....stubbles...nothing...fresh drill nothing 'cept gulls and rooks, cut maize nothing...woods and young rape nothing,

 

went out to my patch off the cromer road where i always have good results at this time of year, saw 3 birds in an hour, there are loads of small acorns and they are not even dropping on to them.....

 

...this is the time of year when i dont even bother to recce and still have a good few hours...not even worth bothering at the moment

 

 

whats your position...........where are all the birds !!!!!!...........(ive seen more partridge than pigeon this autumn )

 

 

 

(fieldfares are not here yet )

Do you retravel your routes at different times as they may be feeding intensively and you pass in the morning . I have posted that we have covered our area and seen nothing then on our way back we find them feeding hard and have a good bag .

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Do you retravel your routes at different times as they may be feeding intensively and you pass in the morning . I have posted that we have covered our area and seen nothing then on our way back we find them feeding hard and have a good bag .

 

 

 

different times of day........its been the same for 3-4 months now.........

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Sorry, didn't see this.

 

I would say both,really. I have a few farms to shoot over a wide area.

 

 

 

the reason i asked is that boys who are having some sensible days seem to be on wide open areas.........just a theory..........just looking for an excuse why there has been nothing around.....i think when we have had some good hard frosts and the jet stream has moved north ...couple of weeks later we hope to start seeing some birds...

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myself and my shooting pal (worzel gummidge on here ) drove round 3 different farms this morning and saw absolutely no pigeons feeding in any numbers at all, saw the odd few in passing but not enough to warrant setting up a hid

 

all very strange

 

Did you follow the birds to find out where they were going as per the PC method?

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Do you retravel your routes at different times as they may be feeding intensively and you pass in the morning . I have posted that we have covered our area and seen nothing then on our way back we find them feeding hard and have a good bag .

 

 

Spot on PC did this on Thursday watching maze stubble for nearly an hour no birds at all. Went round some other permission no birds stopped and spoke to farmer he remarked about lack of birds but was happy with our efforts. Was about to give up and go home but dropped back to the maze guess whot 300 birds all over it. set up and had 19 in late afternoon. :yahoo:

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Spot on PC did this on Thursday watching maze stubble for nearly an hour no birds at all. Went round some other permission no birds stopped and spoke to farmer he remarked about lack of birds but was happy with our efforts. Was about to give up and go home but dropped back to the maze guess whot 300 birds all over it. set up and had 19 in late afternoon. :yahoo:

Well done , remember what works for you.

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Hi, I'm a Norfolk pigeon shooter and have been struggling for the past month or so. In fact that why I logged on today as i wanted to see if anyone else was have the same issues - and it looks like you are!

 

I shoot a fair amount of rape and went Saturday to try my luck - nothing, there wasn't a pigeon on the rape. I think that because it's been such a mild autumn and as yet we haven't had a frost there's still plenty of food for them to feed on without having to resort to the rape.

 

I had some cracking days on the barley stubbles in Aug/Sept but it all seems to have gone very quiet now.

 

All the best.

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Very very quiet here. I had a look at some old stubble up in North Norfolk that has been left and hasn't been sprayed off. It's full of chick weed but unlike other years devoid of pigeon.

In Suffolk we've got some cover crop (millet/raddish/rape mix) that the pigeons hammered last year at this time. This year not a pigeon in sight.

The birds I did see were in the hedgerows gorging on fruit. The hedges are full of blackberries, haws, sloes and the like. There is also a massive acorn crop.

Edited by Whitebridges
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went out to get the paper and some fuel this morning, stopped at a couple of places and used the bins..........still nothing......the fieldfares arnt here yet, quite surprised as they are usually hitting the hedges hard now

 

as soon as the fieldfares arrive i think the pigeons will be behind them....weather has turned a bit cooler but i think we need some real cold weather coming from the east/scandinavia-ish ! before we see some action

 

what do you rekon ?

 

by the way whats all these reports on large numbers of birds on the n/norfolk coast...where are they ...has anyone seen them......sounds to me like a wet dream eh !

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went out to get the paper and some fuel this morning, stopped at a couple of places and used the bins..........still nothing......the fieldfares arnt here yet, quite surprised as they are usually hitting the hedges hard now

 

as soon as the fieldfares arrive i think the pigeons will be behind them....weather has turned a bit cooler but i think we need some real cold weather coming from the east/scandinavia-ish ! before we see some action

 

what do you rekon ?

 

by the way whats all these reports on large numbers of birds on the n/norfolk coast...where are they ...has anyone seen them......sounds to me like a wet dream eh !

autumn watch tonight bbc2 8 pm. they are following any migration at the moment. quite interesting really.

hopefully the fieldfares etc will eat all the berrys when they get here and force the stoggies onto the rape.

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autumn watch tonight bbc2 8 pm. they are following any migration at the moment. quite interesting really.

hopefully the fieldfares etc will eat all the berrys when they get here and force the stoggies onto the rape.

 

 

 

damn right.......then we will see some action...make up for lost time !

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  • 2 weeks later...

Out this week in the fen, shot three birds in as many hours, pitiful, rained heavily the night before so the rape was very wet, but what I did see interested me, now lots of redwing and fieldfares coming in off the wash and heading south, in some numbers, so it may be a sign of things to come, a cold snap maybe.

It's difficult to say why the small bags, the very good natural and agricultural harvest this year, along with the very mild weather so far has kept the pigeon well spread out, maybe a good cold snap will concentrate their numbers as they finish the natural harvest, and we'll have better results.

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