Tag Archives: wood pigeons

I have discovered an intelligent Wood Pigeon – no really

I AM FEEDING the birds with a bird feeder in my back garden.  There are Coal Tits, Blue Tits and other Finch like species taking advantage of the Tesco bounty. In the cold weather, the Robin takes advantage at ground level of spilled seed.

But lo! What’s this? Two days back I observed a Wood Pigeon, not the brightest of birds, just sitting quietly amongst the fallen apples, waiting for seeds to fall from the feeder, just sitting very quietly indeed.

And then today the Wood Pigeon really went off on one.  It decided to take matters into its own, er, claws.  It flew up onto the branch where the feeder is, and did a kind of jig so that seeds would fall off and it could eat them.

This is the most intelligent Wood Pigeon in the world because it is a Wood Pigeon Entrepreneur. Even Cock Robin was aghast at its gall. I will catch a picture, when and if  I can.  Birds seem to be a bit nervous in my back yard, in Oxford.  It’s probably something to do with the railways, and the foxes. As an investigative journalist, I will capture this clever Wood Pigeon. And interview it, if possible.  

The pigeon (kapota) and the Holly Tree

JUST OUTSIDE my kitchen here in Oxford is a surpassing – perhaps egregious Holly Tree.

Obviously, in Oxford, the Ivy is involved.♦

The bounty of fruits has been pretty fab in Englandland this year, and my Holly Bush provided a surfeit of er berries, surpassed by spiky holly things.

So this Wood Pigeon has been snaffling the berries for the last two or three weeks – I have no idea what the berries taste like to the daft bird.

The daft bird has been surfeiting on the Holly Berries just an arm’s length away from certain death if I was as much of a carnivore as I pretend.

But she or he has been asset stripping the berries for several weeks. And that makes me think that either the Holly spikes aren’t enough to protect from fat Wood Pigeons, or the fat Wood Pigeon is really, really stupid.

The Wood Pigeon escapes me snapping him

JUST OUTSIDE my tiny back yard is a tremendous Holly Bush – it was redolent with berries, just in time for Yuletide.

When I go out there, this huge Wood Pigeon sits there avoiding the thorns and snaffling up the berries.

It doesn’t care about me, it cares not for the thorns on the Holly Bush. I could reach it with my good arm and cook it for Yule. Obviously I would not do that.

But every  time I try and snap it from above or from below, the Wood Pigeon gets in a terrible flap. Only in Oxford. The robins and the wrens here are tame. There’s Ivy out there, too.  ♦