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Where have all the wood pigeons gone?


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I have shot wood pigeons for 30 years in East Kent; and have access to over 100 farms between the A28 and A257 south of Canterbury, down to the coast between Folkestone and Sandwich

Used to get regular bags of 50-100 in a day with a record of 284 on newly sown near Bridge, just o/s Canterbury

Took a bit of a break over the last 3 years through work

Have now been back out looking for 4 whole days and haven't found a single decent flight line or more than the odd couple of birds on the odd field or two.

Am I just looking in the wrong places or have the big numbers just disappeared?

I notice more and more woodies in domestic gardens; is this a trend? 

Please advise/all help and advice will be acknowledged

James Dixey

Ickham

 

 

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A tricky year to get back out looking to be fair. If you don't have any peas or spring rape, I'm sure you will see numbers when the cereals start to ripen.

You will probably find your local sports pitches are covered in pigeons at the moment feeing on clover.

 

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Access to 100 farms? Jesus!  Maybe it’s too much land to really keep an eye on?  I regularly shoot over 3 farms totalling less than 3,000 acres and struggle to keep up with that at times... Msybe narrow the search

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Urban pigeons have increased a great deal over the past five years in my opinion. More decoyers have spooked pigeons so they tend to feed in times they feel safe. Observations have seen a large proportion of birds sitting in trees then follow the leader down to feed , if not disturbed they gorge then sit in trees. Flightlines tend to be early and late to the said feeding fields.They are learning to evolve to survive.

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On 5/5/2018 at 11:47, James Dixey said:

I have shot wood pigeons for 30 years in East Kent; and have access to over 100 farms between the A28 and A257 south of Canterbury, down to the coast between Folkestone and Sandwich

Used to get regular bags of 50-100 in a day with a record of 284 on newly sown near Bridge, just o/s Canterbury

Took a bit of a break over the last 3 years through work

Have now been back out looking for 4 whole days and haven't found a single decent flight line or more than the odd couple of birds on the odd field or two.

Am I just looking in the wrong places or have the big numbers just disappeared?

I notice more and more woodies in domestic gardens; is this a trend? 

Please advise/all help and advice will be acknowledged

James Dixey

Ickham

 

 

Hi I live in selling near Faversham, but come from your area used to live in littlebourne and shoot farms at Ickham  (Haywards and mike Maise) also H

Edited by Wooder
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 i will try again too much beer and sunshine !!  Hi I live in selling near Faversham, but come from your area used to live in Littlebourne and have shot farms at Ickham  (Haywards and mike Maise's also Twymans) 

not many birds in the fields down our way at the moment, even the drillings where poor ! had some good days on the rape at a farm near Chartham, but no large bags.  flocks down in Kent are not what they used too be. best shooting is on the rape stubble so a long wait !! 

go for s pint in the Rose at Wickhambreaux some time in the next village. 

 

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19 hours ago, PPP said:

Access to 100 farms? Jesus!  Maybe it’s too much land to really keep an eye on?  I regularly shoot over 3 farms totalling less than 3,000 acres and struggle to keep up with that at times... Msybe narrow the search

Could be some truth in your post , keeping an eye on 100 farms would certainly take some doing , more so if they were large farms , I have got the time and find keeping check on the land I have got takes most of it up . over the years I have homed in on some decent land for pigeon shooting and I don't think I could do any better by having much more land to look after .

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On ‎06‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 15:10, Wooder said:

 

 i will try again too much beer and sunshine !!  Hi I live in selling near Faversham, but come from your area used to live in Littlebourne and have shot farms at Ickham  (Haywards and mike Maise's also Twymans) 

not many birds in the fields down our way at the moment, even the drillings where poor ! had some good days on the rape at a farm near Chartham, but no large bags.  flocks down in Kent are not what they used too be. best shooting is on the rape stubble so a long wait !! 

go for s pint in the Rose at Wickhambreaux some time in the next village. 

 

Thanks for responding

My house is equidistant from Rose and Duke William; so I have a wonderful choice!

I will buy you a pint if you fancy a wander back to your ole huntin grounds!

I don't buy the line "wait until the right feeding turns up"

If the birds are not in our areas, where have they gone? They still have to eat and need an awful lot; they have to eat their own weight every 36 hours is what a Min of Ag scientist told me 10 years ago

They have gone somewhere and are feeding as they always have

We just have to find out where and on what!

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On ‎05‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 13:59, la bala said:

Maybe on your 3 year lay off someone else has got in there and thinned them out.

Could have done!

On ‎05‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 15:12, GingerCat said:

There are defo more birds in gardens if mine is anything to go by. 

That said there are stop big numbers out there, saw hundreds and hundreds yesterday and I have a plan to deal with them in a few days time. 

Keep looking and welcome back. 

 

2 minutes ago, James Dixey said:

Could have done!

 

 

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13 hours ago, James Dixey said:

Thanks for responding

My house is equidistant from Rose and Duke William; so I have a wonderful choice!

I will buy you a pint if you fancy a wander back to your ole huntin grounds!

I don't buy the line "wait until the right feeding turns up"

If the birds are not in our areas, where have they gone? They still have to eat and need an awful lot; they have to eat their own weight every 36 hours is what a Min of Ag scientist told me 10 years ago

They have gone somewhere and are feeding as they always have

We just have to find out where and on what!

Hi James,

a pint sounds good!

I think the poor shooting over drillings this year was all about timing, the drillings where late due to bad weather, so the birds where already on the buds. There are about 20 beech trees over the road from the front of my house, over the last week or two there have been about 50 or 60 birds feed daily on the buds.

what farm did you shoot the 284 on ? I have shot at highland court farm at Bridge.

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