running around after pigeons

[mossy835]

went out today on rape 5 fields.loads and loads of pigeons about flying all over the place would not decoys move to the next field they go to another one. go there back to another one,gave up got home 2 oclock,

[old'un]

Same here, after a good frost on Wednesday night I went for a drive round Thursday, not the best conditions, looked at 6 fields, the best one had about 300 on the ground and in the trees, walked them off and watched them go to some distant woods, sat there for an hour and not one came back, looked again at the other fields and nothing, it had been over two hours since I walked the pigeons off and they were still sat in the trees in the distant wood so I went home.

[kitchrat]

They are not hungry, so can afford to play it safe!

[Morkin]

I went to have a look on the rape today aswell, in the week they had started to work on it but landing in a little wood before going on the rape, so I soughted out a little hide the other day, So today thought I would take my air rifle to get some nice ones for the pot, not one came in the wood in 2-1/2 hours, and I see 1 flying over the rape

[old'un]

50 minutes ago, kitchrat said:

They are not hungry, so can afford to play it safe!

Pigeons play it safe even when hungry.

[clangerman]

now numbers have gone here they prefer the ivy berries over rape shot 4 today rammed full of them 

[marsh man]

We have done threads on timing , weather conditions and god know what and t b h we are still no wiser , we see reports from the big bay boys where they walk them off , set  up and the first Pigeons are over the decoys within minutes . this might well happen to these boys if they have got loads of Pigeons in there area and not that many fields for the birds to feed on and then this situation could easily happen , this is how we find it when rape was first grown around our way , but we are talking now and not then when things were entirely different , you can see why a lot of Pigeon shooters hibernate during the Winter months because they know they are wasting there time and what little time they have got with these short daylight days are spent helping ,or being a gun on a game shoot and trying to fit in the Christmas shopping .

We have been game shooting all day and have seen very few Pigeons , we have seen a lot more Pink Footed Geese than we have Pigeons , they shot two out of the last drive and the one I picked up was full of corn , no doubt it had been feeding around game feeders , unlike a lot of members we seem to get very little demand for help from the land owners as a lot of farmers and land owners who I know are not over concerned about Pigeon damage on rape fields at the moment .   MM 

[old'un]

There was a lot of pigeons in this area up-till the end of October, I shot 41 on some rape in October and there were thousands on it the week before.

Yep, you are right about farmers not being concerned about Pigeon damage at the minute, and I must say I have never seen a field of rape fail due to pigeon damage, slugs yes.

[kitchrat]

1 hour ago, old'un said:

There was a lot of pigeons in this area up-till the end of October, I shot 41 on some rape in October and there were thousands on it the week before.

Yep, you are right about farmers not being concerned about Pigeon damage at the minute, and I must say I have never seen a field of rape fail due to pigeon damage, slugs yes.

Farmers round here are going nuts, calling for help, then putting out gas guns that just make it harder to shoot them, without really stopping the attacks. Pigeon damage in recent years has destroyed crops to the point that many have stopped growing it. (flea beetle hasn't helped!). I still maintain that pigeons "on rape" in October were really on the companion crop of buckwheat. Was there really rape in their crops when you shot them??

[old'un]

13 hours ago, kitchrat said:

Farmers round here are going nuts, calling for help, then putting out gas guns that just make it harder to shoot them, without really stopping the attacks. Pigeon damage in recent years has destroyed crops to the point that many have stopped growing it. (flea beetle hasn't helped!). I still maintain that pigeons "on rape" in October were really on the companion crop of buckwheat. Was there really rape in their crops when you shot them??

First, pigeons eating the fleshy part of the leaf does not kill the plant….but believe it or not they can do the most damage in February/March when its hearting up, as I said the only time I have seen a crop fail was due to slugs and of course flea beetles are now number 1 due to the ban on pesticides.

Were the pigeons I shot hitting the rape….defiantly, the field had been barley, it was power harrowed then direct drilling, no companion crop plus there were plenty of signs of pigeon damage and yes there was rape in some of the pigeons I opened up.

[Wilts#Dave]

43 minutes ago, old'un said:

First, pigeons eating the fleshy part of the leaf does not kill the plant….but believe it or not they can do the most damage in February/March when its hearting up, as I said the only time I have seen a crop fail was due to slugs and of course flea beetles are now number 1 due to the ban on pesticides.

Were the pigeons I shot hitting the rape….defiantly, the field had been barley, it was power harrowed then direct drilling, no companion crop plus there were plenty of signs of pigeon damage and yes there was rape in some of the pigeons I opened up.

Farmers regularly blame pigeons for a poor rape crop, when I know full well that’s not been the case.
Flea beetle/slugs and bad growing conditions are the biggest causes, late sown often never gets going too. The crop can recover from some leaf damage in the spring, but the flea beetle damage is inside the stalk so a healthy looking crop may never mature from spring onwards (visible when you cut a stalk open). 

[old'un]

15 minutes ago, Wilts#Dave said:

Farmers regularly blame pigeons for a poor rape crop, when I know full well that’s not been the case.
Flea beetle/slugs and bad growing conditions are the biggest causes, late sown often never gets going too. The crop can recover from some leaf damage in the spring, but the flea beetle damage is inside the stalk so a healthy looking crop may never mature from spring onwards (visible when you cut a stalk open). 

Yep, bang on.

Over the years I have seen rape that looked like someone had gone over it with a lawn mower, I remember a large part of one such field where it was stripped clean by pigeons, even the stalks had been eaten but it came back in the spring as strong as the rest of the field, as I said most of the problems are caused by pigeons during February/March when its hearting up, which stunts the growth and puts it behind the rest of the field.

 

[mossy835]

the rape i wes shooting over was put very late put in, because he had so mutch to put in,he has rape all over the place.this rape looks poor,but hope it will come on.

[kitchrat]

5 hours ago, old'un said:

First, pigeons eating the fleshy part of the leaf does not kill the plant….but believe it or not they can do the most damage in February/March when its hearting up, as I said the only time I have seen a crop fail was due to slugs and of course flea beetles are now number 1 due to the ban on pesticides.

Were the pigeons I shot hitting the rape….defiantly, the field had been barley, it was power harrowed then direct drilling, no companion crop plus there were plenty of signs of pigeon damage and yes there was rape in some of the pigeons I opened up.

Fully agree with you assessment of when the real damage is done, when the plant re-starts growing in the spring. In the "old days" they used to put sheep in to graze off the plants in autumn, knowing it would regrow OK. Please tell the farmers this, then they can pull the gas guns in and stop making the pigeons jumpy, or better still, just use them to concentrate birds in one area.

[Manymissedpigeon]

Not just in the ‘old days’ k rat. I have farmers who hate to see a yellow flower on advanced OSR in November and do a deal with local sheep farmers whereby they put an electric fence round some parts of the field and still in these days, the sheep graze the leaves off the plant then turn it into manure. Through the middle of winter the frost normally drops a fair amount of leaf off the OSR that in itself feeds the soil. Up here we have a lot of grazing by Roe and ( maybe) by Fallow although I’ve not actually shot Fallow with a stomach full of rape. I have also seen fields with large areas only showing the skeleton of the leaf in January/ February which grow back ok IF the plant is allowed to sprout a new heart in March/April and recover before flowering.

This time of year we spend most time in and around intensive beef farms shooting crows and scaring off protected starlings!

[kitchrat]

I guess they have stopped using sheep round here because there are virtually no sheep! (except grazing under the solar panels) Lots of fallow though but they seem to prefer  winter wheat. Have you got enough starlings?!!

[Manymissedpigeon]

Too many K rat, and that’s just one of many fattening sheds with inside feeder troughs. The sheds with outside feeder troughs are simply starling camo’d so well that you can’t tell the ground from the feeders or the beasts. Also, on another subject, a couple of my farmers growing rape around here this year even say the rape leaves the  pigeons eat would normally fall back to the ground with frost and put ‘goodness’ back in the soil! I said “ don’t the pigeon droppings balance that loss out?” The usual reply is “ no ‘cause the pigeons go **** in the woods!” 
The only blessing at the moment is the rape that has gone in is well advanced with even direct drilled seed coming through evenly so those farmers who risked growing it should have a good return, although from my point of view the pigeons have again nearly deserted this area similar to last years oncoming winter.