Wood Pigeons

F gets exercised about quite a few things, but she gets REALLY exercised about wood pigeons.  She goes from quietly sitting drinking coffee to leaping about yelling and waving her arms.  Mr B calls it ‘Pigeon Tourette’s’.  It happens when she is washing dishes, or gardening, or just looking out the window.  It’s funny to watch, but she’s never going to catch one that way.  You have to sneak up on them.  Fortunately for her the pigeons always come back, so she can have another go.  I’ll teach her how to do it properly one day.

We’ve had as many as 12 at one time in the back yard.  F complains that they empty the birdfeeders and destroy loads of plants by eating the shoots in the Spring.  She even built a cage around one of the gardens, but that didn’t catch any pigeons either; they couldn’t get inside it for a start off.

My birdfeeders have been further modified and now have both anti-squirrel AND anti-pigeon devices.  Empty hanging baskets are upside down over the food trays.  Little birds can get through, but the pigeons go upside down, and tilt, and spin round and round, and get chucked off like the squirrels.  Unlike squirrels, the wood pigeons don’t seem to have worked out that it’s an embarrassing failure on their part and they should give up and maintain their dignity, so there’s hours of entertainment in dizzy stupid pigeons.

Occasionally I stalk wood pigeons.  I have no interest in catching one but I can practice sneaking up on them.  A couple of times when F is watching I have tried to show her the difference between my approach and hers.  I’m sure she doesn’t get it, because I get lots of treats if she sees me making a full charge at the pigeons. 

Of course she should treat me like royalty at all times; and I would never charge on command or just for the treats, but she seems to need reminding about the royalty thing sometimes, so we’ll  just describe charging at pigeons as ‘The Royal Hunt’. OK?

Tally ho!