The Wily Woodie
An estate near me is one of the finest examples of mature wooded parkland in the country. It is particularly beautiful at this time of year when the rhododendrons are in full bloom and many exotic trees compete with each other in the spectacular foliage stakes.
I love walking through those woodlands for several reasons. Firstly, because there is no longer the money around to maintain grounds such as those, the place has virtually reverted to wilderness. Secondly, because the land is still managed for game shooting, the scourge of prairie farming has been kept at bay and there are many hedgerows and marshy corners outwith the mixed blocks of woodland. As a result, wildlife of all types flourishes and the estate really is an amateur naturalist's paradise.
While sharing a yarn with one of the farmers the other day, I pointed out a host of woodpigeon which arose from the treetops on the other side of the march dyke. "Aye," he told me, "the hoodie crows have been creating havoc in Cushie Wood this year. That's the doos repelling another attack."
Because woodpigeon normally lay clutches of only two eggs, it is very easy for the whole brood to fall foul of predators. Woodies rarely conceal their nests and sometimes even take over disused nests of some of their worst enemies - hoodies, grey squirrels and magpies. How the species survives with all the nest-robbing that goes on mystifies me but, as the evidence shows, the wily woodie is in no danger of extinction.
When I crept into Cushie Wood to see the damage for myself, it seemed as if a pair of pigeons clattered noisily from almost every tree. There certainly were hundreds of birds in the wood but the number of broken pieces of eggshell littering the forest floor did suggest that the crows had been having a feast. It is a strange thing that cushies in the countryside are such shy birds yet those which inhabit city parks can become relatively tame.
The woodie is a much larger bird than the feral pigeons which are common in towns. They also tend to be less graceful in flight, rarely indulging in the acrobatics of their smaller cousins.
Whereas the feral colonies will follow the pattern of their cliff-dwelling rock dove ancestors and nest on ledges around buildings or on the girders inside railway stations, urban woodpigeon will normally stick to areas with a selection of suitable trees. In towns, they can be just as much a nuisance to the gardener as they are to the farmer in rural situations. Whether the larder consists of the latest sowing of succulent lettuce or an entire field of peas, the woodie will make short work of anything edible which is left unprotected. We always refer to the rag and straw creations which stand sentry-go in the fields as "scarecrows" but it is really the cushies that they are set up to deter.
In winter our native flocks are joined by hordes of immigrant woodies which migrate from Scandinavia and eastern Europe. Numbers seem to vary enormously from year to year. Sometimes the barley stubbles are blue with pigeons; at other times there is hardly a bird to be seen.
