5:10 this morning. One of them (we’ll call him Alvin) is on our gable end

Alvin (cautiously): coo coo, coo-ca-coo
*pause*
Alvin: coo coo, coo-ca-coo
*pause*
Alvin: coo coo, coo-ca-coo. Coo
*long pause*

In the distance: coo coo. Coo

Me: *groan*

Alvin (enthusiastically): COO COO, COO-CA-COO!
In the distance: COO COO! COO!
Alvin: COO COO, COO-CA-COO! COO!

Me: FFS

That made me laugh far more that it should have.

their problem seems to be mainly that there aren’t enough hours in the day for shittin and shaggin, hence the early start for Alvin

I’m not a fan. I’m quite an early riser and enjoy getting up while the house is quiet and having a coffee and read the news. It was my birthday 3 years ago, and a lovely bright summer’s morning. I came downstairs as usual and made a coffee while looking out at the bright morning. Where to go cycling? Barbecue or fish and chips later in the warm sunshine? My mind was filled with joyful thoughts.

I wandered through the sitting room and then it started. We lived in a cottage which still had open fires. A woodpigeon had descended the chimney in the night. Only it also needed swept. So a pigeon and a bucket of soot had come down the chimney and burst into the room. A room with white walls. The pigeon had not enjoyed this and so had been flying around the room in circles shitting and splatting into the walls. As I surveyed the ruined room and pigeon prints on the wall, the pigeon took fright at me and started another round of flapping and shitting. I got a beach towel and chased the bird around the room until it was cornered. Wrapped in the towel, it was ejected from the front door.

As the soot and feathers settled I checked the room out. I have no idea how something that size can shit so much. By this point my wife had got and up and found me incredulous in a room full of soot, feathers and shit. That’s why I do not care for wood pigeons.

On the upside they taste lovely. For that reason alone I’d swap you all the wood pigeons in the world for a fox in heat, even before you get to the fact they sound like someone strangling a baby with the tail of an angry tom cat, at 3am.

They are however thick as two short planks and repeatedly try to land on the conservatory roof under the bedroom window despite their inability to not slip down it, cue much panicked coo-ing, scratching of feet on the roof, drumming of wings on roof and feverish flapping, repeated immediately they slide off the edge.

Magpies too. Used to have a lot of magpies where I lived. Such a pretty song.

Lol at Tom, I’m visualising that, everyone in the office is now wondering what I’m pissing myself laughing at!! 🙂

Hope you’re keeping well mate.

Legally they are vermin so you can shoot or trap (But not poison) them.

Cue howls of anguish from townies and Chris Packhamites.

all I get here is pigeons and magpies,I’m fed up with them, so I got a birdfeeder which tits like, but magpies started ramming the feeder, to knock seeds out
iirc we used to get a lot of seagulls 20years ago,and before that there were a lot more bird varieties
I just had a Red Kite fly over the garden.If you didnt know, there werent any 30 years ago

It was my birthday 3 years ago

My mind is blown. Do you not have one every year like the rest of us of were you born on 29 Feb?

I’m alright nobeer, mainly busy with kids but still getting out riding locally. Trips away are a thing of the past!

I do have a birthday every year but this incident occurred not on my last birthday, or the one prior to and previous to that, but the one before. In other words, my birthday 3 years ago.

Coo coo coo cooked.

Delicious

My mind is blown. Do you not have one every year like the rest of us of were you born on 29 Feb?

He clearly said it was summer at the time, so unless he lives in the Falklands (nowhere else in the southern hemisphere would have cottages with open fires) there is some sort of time bending going on here.
Incidentally most bird shit is in fact pee. Only the black bits are proper shite.

once watched a wood pigeon snatched off a fence by a cat, he played possum and the cat dropped him in the middle of the lawn and sat up to admire his kill. The pigeon was off in a shot the cat just looked befuddled.

Pigeon pie or casserole?

And what wine?

Aren’t they called Sky Rats in some parts of the world?

which tits like, but magpies started ramming the feeder, to knock seeds out

I enjoyed this sentence

Pigeon pie or casserole?

And what wine?

Pan fried or roast and carved, nothing which makes spotting the shot difficult certainly so no saucing. As for the wine, something rich and tannic so something like an Aglianico, a good malbec or something from Loire is a good call without going to anything daftly priced (or rubbish supermarket versions of pricey stuff* like claret or Barolo). A good buttery chardonnay would also work if you’re a white drinker but tends to be seriously expensive.

*there’s good stuff to be had in supermarkets but many of the “premium” DOCGs etc are pale imitations.

Couple of years ago one of our drivers hit a wood pigeon with a double deck bus.
Stone dead it was, so he picked it up and took it back to the depot.
As a joke he left it on the roof of another drivers car.
That driver (ex army, no nonsense type of guy) took it home, plucked, gutted, then pan fried it and made a wee salad to go with it, drizzled some ceasar sauce over it.
I tried a bit, it was quite tasty.

Town pigeon(ex-homing pigeons) = Skyrats* and good for nothing
Wood pigeon = are better looking,have a nice call and make an excellent pie or casserole.

*Only townies call wood pigeons skyrats

I’ll see your pigeon and raise you a mob of Jackdaws. Absolute bastards of the sky. Noisy and pretty much forced me to stop putting bird feeders in the garden. They’d just drop in to the garden and take all the food.

Wood pigeons, collared doves, and Jackdaws loads of the buggers the ash tree on the neighbour’s side of the border. Poo on everything and no garden birds. The tree was chopped down last week and the small garden birds are back already with no sign of the winged pests.

My mind is blown. Do you not have one every year like the rest of us of were you born on 29 Feb?

Fred?

I’m alright nobeer, mainly busy with kids but still getting out riding locally. Trips away are a thing of the past!

Aye, me too mate, never even made a single Lakes weekend last year, not one. First year in a very long time!. Not bothered though, as the wee one loves hillwalking with us, and I’m having some right good days doing that instead.

Couple of years ago one of our drivers hit a wood pigeon with a double deck bus.
Stone dead it was, so he picked it up and took it back to the depot.
As a joke he left it on the roof of another drivers car.
That driver (ex army, no nonsense type of guy) took it home, plucked, gutted, then pan fried it and made a wee salad to go with it, drizzled some ceasar sauce over it.
I tried a bit, it was quite tasty.

Mate of mine gave me a dozen birds, freshly shot, a few years back, was very disappointed, I can only assume the flavour improves with hanging, as they were quite metallic in taste.

True story – a decapitated one fell out the sky and landed at my feet when I was fishing one time. Pan fried the breasts and had it for lunch.

Legally they are vermin so you can shoot or trap (But not poison) them.

Cue howls of anguish from townies and Chris Packhamites.

It’s a bit more complicated than that since the wildlife and countryside act of 1981. You have to abide by the terms of a general licence issued by Natural England. There are lots of conditions. An “authorised person” can only kill pigeons for specific reasons such as crop protection, public health etc. and only if you can demonstrate that non lethal control methods are impractical.

Having a pot shot at a pigeon in your garden because you don’t like them would definately leave you open to prosecution under the above act.

I shoot them by the way, but at the request of farmers to protect arable crops and under the terms of the general licence.

Wood pigeon are a beautiful and fascinating bird, but are a major agricultural pest. Thankfully they are also magnificent eating.

Mate of mine gave me a dozen birds, freshly shot, a few years back, was very disappointed, I can only assume the flavour improves with hanging, as they were quite metallic in taste.

No need to hang them like pheasant, best to eat them fresh. Pan fry the breasts in butter, but the key is not to over cook them. Not much more than a minute to 90 seconds each side and let them rest before serving. Cooked like this they have the taste and texture of best fillet steak. They go really well with black pudding!

Over cook them and they get the metallic taste you mention and the texture of leather!

We get them in the garden & my Mrs calls them ‘Pompadous’ cos she says they sound like they’re saying, ‘I love yooo… Pompadou’.
Only tried Wood Pigeon once, (in a nice restaurant) It’s not for me & I like most stuff.

Their problem is humans- taking their habitat, not giving a stuff when they’re knocking kids out with not a single care for the future.

Magpies too. Used to have a lot of magpies where I lived. Such a pretty song.

🤣

There’s a regular wood pigeon visits the garden, and goes after the feeders in the Acer tree, sometimes joined by a couple of mates. Greedy sods, they’ll empty a feeder full of sunflower hearts over a couple of days, and I’ve enjoyed challenging them by shifting the positions of the feeders to dissuade them from guzzling the lot.
To be fair, they don’t make anything like as much mess as the goldfinches, I reckon they waste about a third of what I put out for them.
Mucky little wretches.
The big white patches under the tree are bits of sunflower heart!

Sat up in bed when a bird comes flying in is a new experience!

This dude has just made it into the house (through an open waste pipe where a toilet has just been removed), flew all over the shop and thankfully has only pooped on the dust sheets where painting is taking place  – he then made it into the last room to be boarded, which thankfully had the ceiling put up last week – I think if he made it into the roof space it would have been impossible to get him out!

https://imgur.com/MeI5TAc

Pigeon pie with mix of chuck steak n button mushrooms n nice short crust washed down with milk stout please .

Don’t forget the onion gravy .

Thought my Mum was the only person to name pigeons. There’s one she calls Geronimo but I don’t believe she can actually distinguish Geronimo from any other.

Yes home made Pigeon, chicken, bacon, and mushroom pie so good.

We’ve had a couple in our garden for ages. No bother.

We do have magpies too, loads of them, and they jump around on our rooves pecking out the moss presumably to get some kind of bugs out from underneath.

In terms of birds of prey, a sparrowhawk in the local very suburban neighbourhood, handy for keeping the magpie numbers down; and a pair of buzzards in the woods opposite.

Lately Wood Pigeons seem to come into my garden to die. I’ve had to put four (all of them young) away and also Mrs Sparrowhawk has recently had three for herself, two in one day. She killed one right by the patio doors and I spotted her just as I was about to go out. She looked at me with that crazed sparrowhawk glare of hers as if to say “WHAT? You’re not coming out here, pal, this here’s me lunch.” So I had to wait quite some time while she had herself a leisurely lunch.