Must Be An Exceptional Year For Young Pigeons

[marsh man]

Motty reported in one of his posts about the very high numbers of young pigeons he had come across just lately , we normally see good numbers from the rape stubbles but with the harvest being early this year we didn't see the big numbers on the rape stubbles like we would have expected , well moving on a month , this afternoon I went on some old Wheat stubble that I had already shot when it was first harvested , with hanging about at home for a delivery I didn't get out there for getting on for one o clock , within a half an hour I was all set up and ready for the first customer , this one didn't take that long with making the mistake of giving the decoys a miss and flying more or less overhead , having dropped over the other side of the hedge I let my dog go and get it straightaway , coming back with one very dead pigeon it turned out my first young one of the afternoon , sport was fairly slow but I kept getting the odd shot and each one shot seemed a full sized pigeon minus it's neck band or one that was only a few weeks old , by getting on for four o clock it had dried up and with having a few bits to do at home I packed up , when all collected I had 19 , not a big bag by any means but a nice afternoon to be out .

Having looked at the 19, I had two old ones , two that had just started to get the White neckbands and the rest were all young from early and late hatching , normally I would have expected 2 / 3 at the most out of 10 ,but 15 out of 19 seem a hell of of a lot , as Motty rightly say this is going to be an exceptional year for young pigeons .

Have you noticed the same , or was it one of those days .

[mossy835]

very poor here this year for young pigeons,so far this year iv shot about 10,other years iv shot loads,and not that good on the old ones.

[yickdaz]

53 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Motty reported in one of his posts about the very high numbers of young pigeons he had come across just lately , we normally see good numbers from the rape stubbles but with the harvest being early this year we didn't see the big numbers on the rape stubbles like we would have expected , well moving on a month , this afternoon I went on some old Wheat stubble that I had already shot when it was first harvested , with hanging about at home for a delivery I didn't get out there for getting on for one o clock , within a half an hour I was all set up and ready for the first customer , this one didn't take that long with making the mistake of giving the decoys a miss and flying more or less overhead , having dropped over the other side of the hedge I let my dog go and get it straightaway , coming back with one very dead pigeon it turned out my first young one of the afternoon , sport was fairly slow but I kept getting the odd shot and each one shot seemed a full sized pigeon minus it's neck band or one that was only a few weeks old , by getting on for four o clock it had dried up and with having a few bits to do at home I packed up , when all collected I had 19 , not a big bag by any means but a nice afternoon to be out .

Having looked at the 19, I had two old ones , two that had just started to get the White neckbands and the rest were all young from early and late hatching , normally I would have expected 2 / 3 at the most out of 10 ,but 15 out of 19 seem a hell of of a lot , as Motty rightly say this is going to be an exceptional year for young pigeons .

Have you noticed the same , or was it one of those days .

there is a lot young birds about around here at the min as well 

[WalkedUp]

About 10% shot today were young birds, however when we got to the field there were dozens and dozens of them sat in a tiny tree. Hope it would have meant easy pickings but they didn’t really come back 😢

[GingerCat]

Earlier today I saw a young pigeon on the floor. It was clearly in a bad state so I did the decent thing for it. I noticed its head covered in ticks, must have had 30 or so. Never seen a pigeon like that before  

[motty]

Driving around and at work this weekend, I have seen a lot more youngsters. I am expecting some good decoying very soon.

[marsh man]

19 hours ago, GingerCat said:

Earlier today I saw a young pigeon on the floor. It was clearly in a bad state so I did the decent thing for it. I noticed its head covered in ticks, must have had 30 or so. Never seen a pigeon like that before  

Would it had picked the Ticks up while in the nest or when it was on the floor ?

 

7 minutes ago, motty said:

Driving around and at work this weekend, I have seen a lot more youngsters. I am expecting some good decoying very soon.

My high ratio of youngsters could have been down to poor decoying as only the young ones were daft enough to come anywhere the set up , joking aside , we are now seeing a lot less pigeons now all the edible crops are now in and apart from a few stubble fields they haven't now got much to go on .

[Jim Neal]

Definitely been a decent breeding year for them.  My dogs have pegged a few youngsters just on the morning walk round my village (springers if you even needed to ask).  Got a few strange looks from mums walking kids to school as I wrapped a bird's head round a lamp post the other day!  Bet they would have taken it to the vet.

The latest victim, one of its eyes was all manky.  Not fly-blown but looked a bit crusty and receded.  Should have taken a picture but it got binned a bit quick due to onlookers.  Not like mycoplasma that I've seen in pheasants, or like fowl pox, a bit weird really.  This one, I think it had been hit by a car as it seemed like it had a broken wing, but whether that was the primary cause of its disability or not I couldn't say.