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Pigeons & Puffballs


Old Boggy
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I had a little session yesterday afternoon alongside a small wood surrounded by wheat stubble undersown with rape. Pigeons were previously seen flying over the wood and one or two down feeding. They didn`t really wish to decoy and most were overflying the wood. So I then changed tactics and took just the seat and positioned myself in the edge of the wood to intersect what appeared to be a reasonable flightline, albeit on a broad front. This resulted in just 5 pigeons, but all proved to be very sporting shots which gave me great satisfaction.

The pigeons have just been breasted and the crops contained a mixture of wheat and volunteer rape, which somewhat blows my belief that they never feed on volunteer rape. Perhaps in this instance whilst eating the wheat, they took the occasional nibble on the new rape leaves !

However, it wasn`t just about the shooting, as I also managed to take home a couple of puffballs, 3 lbs of sloes (yes they were early, but ripe) and 1 lb. of blackberries. The largest of the puffballs was about a foot in diameter.

I know exactly what to do with the sloes, my wife will deal with the blackberries, but we`ve never cooked or eaten puffballs, so I`m looking for inspiration as to a good recipe. I understand that they are good, thinly sliced and cooked in butter, but any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

On returning home, the field of maize at the back of my house, which in the morning had only rooks down, had a good concentration of pigeons feeding, so would have been the most productive shooting. However, I was more than pleased with my `mixed bag` and the maize hopefully will wait a couple of days until my next foray out.

OB

 

 

Edited by Old Boggy
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My post above was written without fully operating the brain. I referred to volunteer rape, whereas the emerging leaves through the wheat stubble was of course newly drilled rape. The pigeons were predominantly after any remaining wheat and presumably had the odd nibble of the new leaves whilst foraging for wheat.

However, I'm still of the belief that pigeons won't touch volunteer rape. I assume that  at the time when the volunteer rape emerges, there are better pickings with more protein elsewhere. It also amazes me how much seed is lost at harvest as the rape stubble fields very quickly 'green up' completely indicating a 100% germination of the 'lost' seed.

I also forgot to mention returning from my trip out with a hatful of field mushrooms, so quite a mixed bag.

OB

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The puff balls need to be white inside if they grey or brown they have past there best the right and nice size are about the size of a small melon

the best way I have found to cook them is to cut them about 1 inch thick and fry them in hot butter make sure the butter is hot befor puting in the slice of puff ball and fry till brown on each side hope this helps 

eddy

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I've had a couple of nice ones lately; largest was just a bit bigger than a coconut. We just cut it up and steamed it gently in a pan with butter and garlic. Like all fungi, they cook down greatly, but if you want to prevent that then you can fry it gently first. Nice with a bit of stilton mixed in. 

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39 minutes ago, motty said:

I read somewhere that around 20% of the crop of rape seed is lost on the fields at/before harvest.

i can well believe that.............seeing the fields that have chitted ...before ploughing......think they use it as a soil improver....................

at one time the farmers used to use a product called "pod stick"...which was sprayed on before the pods opened...to lessen seed loss............

 

instead of combining they would be better off using a bloody big hoover.............

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On 10 September 2018 at 16:19, Scully said:

I've had a couple of nice ones lately; largest was just a bit bigger than a coconut. We just cut it up and steamed it gently in a pan with butter and garlic. Like all fungi, they cook down greatly, but if you want to prevent that then you can fry it gently first. Nice with a bit of stilton mixed in. 

Took your advice with the stilton, Scully and it was absolutely delicious. 

Thanks for that.

OB

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