Green ivy berries !!

[Cranfield]

I had a telephone call from a friend last night and he was telling me about a brief walk he had, round the edge of a wood on his permission.

 

He shot 12 pigeons that flew from the trees as he walked past and had just debreasted them in his garage.

All had large amounts of green ivy berries in their crops and a small amount of hawthorn red berries.

Neither of us could remember ever finding a lot of unripe ivy berries in a crop before.

 

These birds had lots of other feeding opportunities, so it seems a bit strange.

I always find birds that have been on ivy berries taste a bit "sharp", so I politely turned down his kind offer of a couple of birds.

[Paul in North Lincs.]

Strange...............................I would have assuemd that there is still much better tasting and nuitritous food stuffs about for blueis at this time of year than ivies.........

 

must have been a realy easy meal.........I shot a coupel recently that have jam packed with hawthorn berries

[Country Boy]

Nothing unusual about pigeons eating ivy berries black or green

around my patch here they are also taking rape leaves inbetween.

[farmer]

Hawthorn berries and a bit of rape in the ones I had last week but as I walked across to the one wood where i was shooting the pigeons came out of the trees in droves I just thought they were resting up as this was early afternoon?

[Keith]

Certainly ivy berries on my permission. Last three have had their crops stuffed full of them. I've not noticed the sharp flvour though - but then I stir-fried them with soy sauce, ginger, garlic and chilli - very nice with some coconut rice and water chestnuts.