Nationwide pigeon poulations

[motty]

Following on from a different thread, I am interested in how people see the levels of pigeon populations in their area. In recent years I have shot pigeons in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Essex. From what I have seen and shot in these counties, there is an abundance of woodies. What are your experiences in the counties you shoot? Is it possible/normal to shoot big bags of birds? Please share your findings.

[mossy835]

dont think you will shoot big bags down here,never have iv been shooting pigeons for many years.and never got near the 100 mark and never will.its not getting any better down here.most iv ever shot in one outing is,68 not got near it since.

[ditchman]

the pigeon population where i am ......has remained static of the last 12 years...its just that their habits have changed.....im fairly sure of my facts as the main roosting wood...(its actually a very large carr) ...is where most of them roost from around here.....the carr has never been shot , it is a refuge for the game ...and next to a reserve...and the pigeons that roost there do so in similar numbers all thro the year.............but they have seemed to return to that carr later and later over the years.........this is born out now...by the virtual non existence of roost shooting now...the birds are returning at almost nighttime...not dusk anymore

 

 

hope that is of help.......

[Dr D]

I would say we are somewhere near average. Used to get thousands in winter, but that has completely disappeared over the last decade. Global warming!

[marsh man]

No two years are the same , one year can be brilliant , with pigeons everywhere and the next can be a disaster as far as pigeons go.

 

With living on the coast we find if we get a mild Winter then the pigeons stay around here , whereas if we get a hard Winter then we find pigeons move inland to where its a bit warmer , possibly around Thetford and the Breckland area where there are plenty of pine woods.

 

Lately I have been shooting 50 / 100 each week and what I have noticed lately is the lack of young ones in the bag , normally I find the peak of young ones is around the time of rape stubbles and our rape stubbles are well past the sell by date now , the lack of young ones is only my findings , other people might find this is not the case.

 

Unlike your good self I don't travel much more than 15 miles to shoot pigeons and if I cant find enough in the land I have got then I cant see any sense traveling much further as I cant always cover the area I shoot over .

[aga man]

Interesting topic to post. In many parts of Yorkshire all i can see is pigeons numbers increasing and birds breeding all year round.

What i have noticed over the past 20 years at least in my area, is a noticeable change in habits in the pigeons. They are much more a town/urban bird these days and seem to manage well on clover and other foods found in the towns for most of the year.

That said some very good bags can be made as move out to feed on bean stubbles etc in the coming months.

I am in north yorkshire at the minute and the pigeons here are very much in courtship mode and don't seem interested in the stubbles here.

I expect/hope to shoot some good bags during September & october.

[lancer425]

Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire on the areas i shoot population seems stable if anything slightly down in the past 20 years, agree on the roost shooting issue it used to be good flighting into the woods but this past 5 or 6 years it has dropped off a lot even if you walk round wood sides tree lines at dusk very few about, but go to the same place at night when lamping you get lots of pigeon about. Any ideas why this could be?

[Fisheruk]

Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire on the areas i shoot population seems stable if anything slightly down in the past 20 years, agree on the roost shooting issue it used to be good flighting into the woods but this past 5 or 6 years it has dropped off a lot even if you walk round wood sides tree lines at dusk very few about, but go to the same place at night when lamping you get lots of pigeon about. Any ideas why this could be?

 

I'd call it survival.

[Cranfield]

I think there have been some changes in the dispersal of birds around the UK.

We don't seem to have as many birds throughout the year in Kent as we had, say 10 years ago.

Friends of mine in Sussex and Hampshire say much the same.

Just reading reports on this Forum, you see a wide variation of activity around the Counties throughout the year.

The Midland counties seem to be holding larger populations, with the East region coming a close second.

 

Changes in weather patterns could be an influence, no heavy Winter snowfalls, mean less big flocks round here, as they have lots of food available to them.

It was great to have the only green patch for miles in bad weather, certainly worth an extra slab of cartridges in the truck.

[wymberley]

dont think you will shoot big bags down here,never have iv been shooting pigeons for many years.and never got near the 100 mark and never will.its not getting any better down here.most iv ever shot in one outing is,68 not got near it since.

Probably because I'm not far away, have to agree. If you have a well spread out and large acreage to shoot over, then you're in with a chance of reasonable bags but in my immediate area of East Devon you work hard for every one you get. Annoyingly because I packed up before doing the count and also had 4 dead in a thick blackthorn hedge which I couldn't get to, my best is 96. This was exceptional, the previous being 65 but 30 would be considered a fair average day. Just at the moment they're all over the place and won't stay put so double figures is a bonus. Hopefully this will change in a day or two weather permitting.

[kyska]

Contrary to Cranfields findings I have very very few birds presenting to shoot, I'm in the east mids, literally on the Notts/Leicestershire border.

 

Big bags have never been shot on our farm, not just me, other people who actually know what they're doing struggle too.

 

It's not that the birds aren't there, they just seem very reluctant to respond to decoys.

 

We've just finished our wheat harvest, I've been for a drive and it's the odd single bird, maybe groups of 5 or so, but not many.

 

Over the last ten years it's rare to get a bag of more than 25.

 

It's not that we don't cater for them as we rotate wheat, barley, beans and rape.

Edited August 13, 2017 by kyska

[mossy835]

i think the pigeons are on the decline,since the rape has been cut there is not as many showing on it like last year.im waiting for 12 fields of wheat to be cut,should be this week if weather lets it,we will see then what comes in to it, not one bird on cut beans yesterday,at all not morning or afternoon.i may as well stayed home. but its a day out.

[yickdaz]

Following on from a different thread, I am interested in how people see the levels of pigeon populations in their area. In recent years I have shot pigeons in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Essex. From what I have seen and shot in these counties, there is an abundance of woodies. What are your experiences in the counties you shoot? Is it possible/normal to shoot big bags of birds? Please share your findings.

the areas we shoot and have done for 30 years the numbers are about the same as they always have been,definatley no decrease in numbers one year a certain area does better than the previous year, winter is always a difficult time on them for us and a lot of other shooters spring is hit and miss but summer, and autumn the birds are around on stubbles every week

[JDog]

In arable areas there is always a perceived shortage of pigeons at harvest times as people are looking for bumper bags easily gained.

 

In the winter the only crop attractive to pigeons is rape and large flocks may be seen on that food source. In the spring drillings are of interest and again large flocks are seen and good bags obtained. Thereafter until harvest several crops feed pigeons. In vegetable growing areas huge numbers can be seen on brassicas.

 

At harvest time pigeons have a wide choice and there may be hundreds of fields to chose from. Fifty pigeons in each of ten fields might give the impression that there are not many about. Five hundred in one field would give a different impression.

 

Whether there are less pigeons as a whole is cannot say but the surveys would indicate that the pigeon population is increasing year on year irrespective of inward migration.

[lakeside1000]

As with Marsh man I shoot a small area around Great Yarmouth and out towards Norwich, not a huge area but mostly arable with a lot of rape, peas, barley and wheat, winter rape on young plants is my favourite, but rape and wheat stubble's are a good late summer area to get good numbers.

Having said all that we would consider a good bag for a 5 hour session would be around 45 to 50 birds, we rarely see the huge flocks I used to shoot in the 70's around the Nottingham Leicester border, where several thousand would pass by in a days shooting and a basic decoy pattern would bring you several hundred targets , at the time I was young and not so experienced with the 12 bore, but I would class a good day with 75 to 100 picked.

I have shot this Norfolk area for around 5 years, I would say there is a stable population of pigeons with very few serious shooters out most weeks, I shoot 2 to 3 times every week and try to vary the areas I go to so as not to over shoot and make the birds nervous, but sadly on many occasions I will only just get into double figures,

Numbers are indeed low with a large flock consisting of only 100 to 200 birds and normal groups moving around the feeding areas of only a dozen or so.

I have noticed on land around my home that the pigeon population is increasing with almost no shooting allowed on large pheasant shoot farms, where woodland seems to be alive with pigeons left pretty much undisturbed throughout the whole year. sadly gamekeepers and land owners seem very anti vermin control, at least where pigeons are concerned, maybe due to the very large sums of money earned from shoots,

I still get great excitement from watching youtube video's of huge flocks of pigeons in other parts of the country and can only wait and watch in the hope that one day some of them will migrate into Norfolk where we have lots of space for them to set up home.

Edited August 13, 2017 by lakeside1000

[kenholland]

seem to find more feeding on clover and grass tracks just lately ,did my rounds yesterday nothing on any stubbles at all, just keep looking.

[fortune]

I have been watching the stubbles and there aren't many birds coming in to them at all. There seem to be more birds dispersed around local domestic gardens. I'm not joking but probably I could shoot more out of my front room window with an air rifle coming in to eat grain spilt by the sparrows from the bird feeder than setting up out on a field. There are a lot of birds out on the roads gritting. It is a very different situation to the amount that some shoot on here.

[mossy835]

yes i could shoot more from the trees at the back of my garden, then in the fields.

[Catamong]

I've been shooting pigeons in my area since the early 70's, there are definitely fewer birds around now than there were then, and that's not just my opinion, others I know that shoot in this area would agree with me.

 

Their feeding habits have changed, there are now many more birds resident in the Towns and gardens, this is why, according to the RSPB surveys, pigeon numbers are on the increase, as their survey data is provided by schoolkids noting what type of birds are on the bird table, not by Ornithologists monitoring bird numbers over arable farmland.

 

Having said that, there are still good numbers of birds in my area, with 100+ bags commonplace for those Guys who know what they're doing, it's just that there are not as many birds around as there were.

 

One cause of the decline in this area has been the odd harsh Winter, if we get prolonged snow cover, the birds simply move off to other areas, never to return, and whilst we've not had that in these parts for a few years, it was definitely noticeable.

 

A big concern for me personally is the fact that some of the best land I have to shoot over is now scheduled for re-development, both Residential and Commercial, in a big swathe alongside the M1 motorway. I'm hoping that this will force the birds onto other areas of farmland that I can access, so I will have to wait and see how things work out..?

 

Cat.

[kitchrat]

Following on from a different thread, I am interested in how people see the levels of pigeon populations in their area. In recent years I have shot pigeons in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Essex. From what I have seen and shot in these counties, there is an abundance of woodies. What are your experiences in the counties you shoot? Is it possible/normal to shoot big bags of birds? Please share your findings.

Again, in the spirit of debate, in my perms in Essex there seem to be fewer birds then 10 years ago and they are harder to decoy. I put the reduction down to better farm machinery, which leaves little or no spilt grain at drilling or harvest and short-straw cereals refusing to get blown down. Also, paddocks and towns seem to feed more birds, unless farmers round here have started to grow peanuts and brown bread as crops! In fact they have almost totally stopped growing rape (low price, Flea Beetle etc) so that won't help.

Birds behaviour is changing too, they are wary because of over shooting. So are their tastes it seems. In the "Good Old Days", you would sell your Mother to get permission on peas. Today, I have 1000 acres of peas, almost no pigeons at any time of year.

I know these problems I have are not universal, you Boys on the fens seem to live in Paradise!

Having said that, Peter Theobald claims to shoot 1000's each year just 25 miles up the road and one of the internet stars does likewise "in Essex". His videos show birds like I never see on my patches, group after group going straight into the decoys. I don't see as many birds as these guys shoot.

However, they do have control of the farm(s) they shoot over and can leave birds to build up if they choose and can plough 90% of the rape stubble to concentrate the birds.

Just one hard luck story after another I know, but I think there are less about and they are smarter.

[bigman]

I travel around Cambridgeshire everyday and have seen nothing to get excited about , plenty in the trees in my garden and surrounding but nothing in the fields a handful at best , the reason I'm taking up archery now and hanging up the shotgun , it's just not worth it wasted too many weekends sat in the in my disco watching empty sky's or paying for sitting in a empty field twiddling my thumbs

Edited August 16, 2017 by bigman

[dead eye alan]

Tom was on reconnaissances yesterday and found a field of rape stubble blue all over, now this field has not been shot for at least a year due to no pigeon activity at all during that time.

Today we will give it a bash i will report later.

[Davyo]

I don't shoot anymore but have often wondered what pigeon movement will be like when farmers no longer get told what to grow ?

[ditchman]

another interesting topic.............................

 

 

 

 

"DID JOINING THE E.U. HAVE AN EFFECT ON PIGEONSHOOTING"

[Shotguneddy]

Seems to be a lot less about now, in my area, vale white horse than their used to be 5-6 years ago for sure. Maybe because the weathers and seasons have been very unpredictable with not many hard winters and changeable wet sunmers, gails, seems crops are changing. Machinery barely leaves a grain these days, bring back the old school farmers and equipment no grain would've been going back to the farm,

 

Cheer's eddy

Edited August 16, 2017 by Shotguneddy