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2 weeks ago i went on a perm i havent been to in over a year,due to constant road works n traffic jams,on arrival i find half afield of bean stubble and half still standing,with swathes of blue all over it,probably a 1000 or so,2 days later half that amount next day out to shoot it,result 10 birds between 2 of us,no way would they come in range,now they,re down to about 50 resident birds,out on friday last,result no woody,one squirrel an two magpies,where have all the pigeon gone?its littered with beans.

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Hi I was around your area last week. There were flocks of a hundred or so dropping into trees. I don’t think they are eating ivy berries it’s a bit early. When they are eating ivy the droppings under the trees look like they have been on curry. A lot of the town and city pigeons have gone back home. A lot of pigeons in the area last week and hundreds of jackdaws on drilling seem to have more each year maybe it’s the wet fields.

 

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Well I went out for a shot yesterday afternoon 2-4.30pm, and a few hundred cleared from the woods. They didn't seem to come back, but after a quiet start good flightline developed with the birds heading onto a different wood about a mile away. The wind was strong and favourable (in their faces), but coming over the trees the birds were high but plenty in range, picked 22, with a couple not picked. Fired a good few cartridges including a couple of bismuth that I'd put into my pocket in a hurry...

Drove to Mole Valley this morning and every hedgerow oak had 30-40 pigeons in it. I don't know about the rest of the country but our oaks here in the SW are laden, and as you'd expect all the shot birds were stuffed with them. 

I did drop one from a flock of 'suspected scandi' birds but although I kept it separate there wasn't anything to distinguish it from the rest that I noticed. Good flightline going the opposite way this morning from 7-8am. Would be a super way to start the day and be back in time for breakfast.

 

PXL_20201117_165423642.jpg

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Just a comment, with no driven days at the moment, I bet a lot of woods that are shot are absolutely stuffed with birds. They have everything they need, and why would they leave with so little disturbance? Could that and it being a serious acorn mast year explain why some are seeing so few? 

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4 minutes ago, Teal said:

Just a comment, with no driven days at the moment, I bet a lot of woods that are shot are absolutely stuffed with birds. They have everything they need, and why would they leave with so little disturbance? Could that and it being a serious acorn mast year explain why some are seeing so few? 

I’m very inexperienced teal, but, I think that’s a very valid point! With all the game bird feeders out  plus nature’s offerings and no disturbance makes perfect sense that they have no reason to venture elsewhere

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I'm not dispersing pigeons in any great numbers at all when I tour around the drives I keeper on our syndicate.  Only usually a handful get up out of the game covers when I drive past, if any at all.  They're somewhere!

Maybe they've migrated?

They could, of course, have succumbed to crow-vid-19

 

 

Taxi...

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On 19/11/2020 at 00:18, Jim Neal said:

I'm not dispersing pigeons in any great numbers at all when I tour around the drives I keeper on our syndicate.  Only usually a handful get up out of the game covers when I drive past, if any at all.  They're somewhere!

Maybe they've migrated?

They could, of course, have succumbed to crow-vid-19

 

 

Taxi...

Replying to your post and Teal's post, I think that a lot of pigeons have hopped it. But a couple of days ago I  did see two large flocks of pigeons milling around a couple of "pheasant" woods. So food for thought on both counts.

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1 hour ago, Balotelli said:

Replying to your post and Teal's post, I think that a lot of pigeons have hopped it. But a couple of days ago I  did see two large flocks of pigeons milling around a couple of "pheasant" woods. So food for thought on both counts.

And did those "Pheasant Woods" contain oak trees?

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I was out on the shoot from about 10 till 2:30 today.  Loads of oak in the woods, still a few acorns to be found but not a pigeon in sight except the very odd single or pair passing over the top.  Certainly didn't put any up off the ground.

 

I was back up there feeding in the dark this evening and the resident herd of roe deer are walloping the stubble turnips that are supposed to be growing for the sheep to get on soon; rabbits rooting round in my straw piles for wheat; fox scarpered along a hedge as I came round the corner.  But no pigeons clapping out of the trees in the two plantations I feed up at night, where there will usually be quite a lot.

Who knows what is going on.  Maybe the OSR situation is a much bigger game-changer than anyone could have thought?

I'm going to take my 12ga hushpower out for a little stand in a wood tomorrow afternoon, out the way of the pens, and see what's coming in.  My favoured spot is, as far as I can ascertain, the main flight line into this block of woods from the nearby town and surrounding arable land so it's a very good gauge of pigeon numbers I think.

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Three victims this afternoon:

  1. jam packed with haws
  2. jam packed with ivy berries
  3. nothing much except a few of what looked like small acorns plus some bird table kind of seeds and a bit of mushy stuff which smelled like bread, so I presume that had been in someone's back garden.

I don't usually roost shoot this time of year but compared to Jan/Feb I'd say there were about half the number of birds I'd usually see in this location.

The dogs enjoyed their dinner :)

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3 hours ago, Jim Neal said:

Three victims this afternoon:

  1. jam packed with haws
  2. jam packed with ivy berries
  3. nothing much except a few of what looked like small acorns plus some bird table kind of seeds and a bit of mushy stuff which smelled like bread, so I presume that had been in someone's back garden.

I don't usually roost shoot this time of year but compared to Jan/Feb I'd say there were about half the number of birds I'd usually see in this location.

The dogs enjoyed their dinner :)

That's pretty well it in a nutshell, few pigeons about and the few that are clearly on the diet above. Pointless going out and even more pointless trying to decoy. 

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On 22/11/2020 at 00:55, Balotelli said:

That's pretty well it in a nutshell, few pigeons about and the few that are clearly on the diet above. Pointless going out and even more pointless trying to decoy. 

Maybe it would be if you set yourself up in a hawthorn hedge that had some trees with ivy growing up them, and you mounted several flappers in the hedge.... maybe put a bird table in your pattern... two loaves of bread out on the rotary, upwind?

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hi jacko,                                                                                                                                                                                                             im out 3 /4 days a week, like the others not much doing.                                                                                                                 most of the birds are doing the all over the country in the trees on acorns.                                                                                   i keep looking lifted beet fields, any old stubbles.  still a bit of late drilling to go in                                                                       not holding my breath.  need the weather to turn colder might get the birds out more.   

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Finally found a promising field. Been watching an old maize stubble for the past two weeks. Only corvids have been feeding on it but the past couple of days, I’ve been watching about 400-500 pigeons hit it hard. Shooting it tomorrow in less than ideal conditions but it’s my only chance to have a go. The birds feed at first light and then not again until 12:30 onwards. Would you recommend setting up at first light or catch the later feed? 

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2 minutes ago, Pigeon addict said:

Finally found a promising field. Been watching an old maize stubble for the past two weeks. Only corvids have been feeding on it but the past couple of days, I’ve been watching about 400-500 pigeons hit it hard. Shooting it tomorrow in less than ideal conditions but it’s my only chance to have a go. The birds feed at first light and then not again until 12:30 onwards. Would you recommend setting up at first light or catch the later feed? 

If it was me I’d be set up for first light and then sitting it out until the end of the day. But I’m overly keen 🤣, so probably not the correct way to go about it 

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23 minutes ago, Pigeon addict said:

Finally found a promising field. Been watching an old maize stubble for the past two weeks. Only corvids have been feeding on it but the past couple of days, I’ve been watching about 400-500 pigeons hit it hard. Shooting it tomorrow in less than ideal conditions but it’s my only chance to have a go. The birds feed at first light and then not again until 12:30 onwards. Would you recommend setting up at first light or catch the later feed? 

Never liked decoying pigeons at first light, flight line pigeons coming out of the woods yes, this time of year I find that if you hit them at first light when decoying you have a bit of shooting but after that you don't see them again as they have plenty of time to find something else.

Having said that, you just never know with pigeons, they have a knack of making us look stupid.

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4 hours ago, old'un said:

Never liked decoying pigeons at first light, flight line pigeons coming out of the woods yes, this time of year I find that if you hit them at first light when decoying you have a bit of shooting but after that you don't see them again as they have plenty of time to find something else.

Having said that, you just never know with pigeons, they have a knack of making us look stupid.

Good point. First light might be a bit keen especially as the second feed on this field doesn’t start until about 13:30. I’ll try and be set up by about 8am. Since it’s maize my guess is that most will be gone by then as they only need a handful of grains to fill their crop but I might shoot the odd one coming back for seconds!

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