Shooting Times & Country – 17 July 2019

Pigeon control

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 17

I followed his line of sight to the
road and realised I’d forgotten my
contact lenses. Some 30 seconds
later, as the birds approached, I could
fi nally make out what he was looking
at. A group of 200 pigeons was
bearing down on our decoys from on
high. “I think we could be in for a big
one,” Matt announced, then leaped
up and dropped a well-chosen bird.
For the next 20 minutes we hardly
spoke. Almost ceaselessly, pigeons
came off our backs over the trees,
whiffl ed down from 70 yards up and
fl ew up the fi eld in font of us. Matt’s
neglected Beretta hardly missed
a beat and I didn’t let myself down
totally with my new Blaser F3.
Midday passed and the pigeons
became slightly wary, seemingly as

a result of a number of birds lying

on their backs, so we unloaded our

guns and walked out to collect the

fallen. Even as we wandered back

and forth across the stubble fi eld,

hungry woodies fl ew around above

us, desperate to descend.

Sitting back in the hide, I looked

out over the net to see our pattern

had grown to about 70 birds. My

quick mug of tea was cut short by

a grey speck drifting towards us.

“It’s a woody,” said Matt, so I stopped

squinting and picked up my gun.

Switching targets

When it was some 30 yards away,

I realised it wasn’t alone. Three or four

other birds were twisting in behind it.

When I stood up to pick one of them

off , I was suddenly faced by at least 20.

Midway through mounting my gun

I decided to switch target and went

for one slightly further to the left.

Needless to say, I fi red two shots and

every bird in the cloudless sky lived

to tell the tale.

Across the sun-baked fi eld, a

woman in sandals emerged from a

cloud of dust. At fi rst, I wondered

if it was simply some sort of

mirage but she got bigger and

bigger. She was coming our way and

she wasn’t happy. Regular readers

will remember that previous pigeon-

shooting trips of mine have been cut

short by holidaying vegans and I was

determined this wasn’t going to go

the same way. So I unloaded my gun,

passed it to Matt and wen out

of the hide to meet her.

“You’re making an absolute

racket. I’ve got dogs crying and my

grandchildren can’t understand what

all the banging is,” she said. I almost

suggested she send her grandchildren

over to spend the afternoon shooting

with us, but decided it wasn’t the

best tack.

“I’m really sorry but we have to

go where the pigeons are. It’s only

for today and they’re doing a lot of

damage to that laid barley over the

hedge.” The bemused grandmother

peered into the other fi eld and then,

in a surreal U-turn, told me that

she supposed “it was all right” and

reckoned that, despite the noise, it

was “good to see someone shooting

the pigeons as they do so much

damage to crops”.

She went off into the sun

and I walked back to my hide

wishing that everyone could be

as understanding about the way

the countryside works.

“So often you can’t get the birds to come

to you, but every once in a while there’s

almost nothing you can do to stop them”

Local farmer Rob Swift

fi nds easy pickings as

the pigeons swoop in