Scouting for birds

Peter Theobald looks at the most important element to a successful day's decoying - reconnaissance

Over the past two issues I have covered decoy patterns and hide building, both essential elements for a successful day’s decoying. This month I’d like to discuss the most important element of all, reconnaissance.

A beautifully constructed hide, overlooking an immaculate spread of decoys, will be worthless if they are placed on a field where no pigeons are feeding. It is a common misconception that you can get birds to come to the decoys simply by placing them under a flightline.

As decoyers, we are fortunate that the woodpigeon’s nemesis is its desire to always try to feed with its pals, sometimes travelling long distances in order to reach their chosen field, expecting to find their chums feeding.

To help them do this, pigeons have evolved white bars of feathers on their wings (only visible while the bird is flying) and white flashes on its neck (prominent when it is feeding). Our task, if we are to be successful, is to find the field that the majority of the birds in the area want to feed on. We do this by going out on scouting trips, investigating any possibility on whatever permissions we have. It may sound like an impossible task, as pigeons will have relatively few choices of food at any time of the year, except perhaps harvest time. However, plenty of fields can be dismissed, simply because they have no food or the farmers will have ripped them up before the birds can establish a regular pattern.

What to look for

My friend Paul and I are lucky enough to shoot over a large number of farms located in various parts of Essex and Suffolk. It is unheard of for us to just turn up on the day and hope for the best. This is, unfortunately, the fate of weekend shooters who may only have one permission, and only have one day a week to shoot.

We will spend at least one day of careful reconnaissance before the day we shoot. We will establish the numbers of pigeons using the field, and also the time they are likely to start arriving. Paul likes to watch the White patches help woodpigeons identify their feathered friends.

flightlines going into feed for an hour or so, while I tend to just push the birds off, to see how many are feeding. The direction they depart will generally tell me where they will return. The trick is to judge the optimum day on which to shoot.

Narrow down the fields

Will the build up of pigeon numbers continue or will they shift to another location if a more attractive alternative presents itself? How long will the food last, particularly if the field you are watching has been drilled? I have seen drilled fields crawling with birds one day, but totally deserted the next, because all the available food had been eaten.

Will the weather be favourable? Pigeons do not like venturing out in the rain, and nor do we. A decent wind is handy, but not essential, except in the winter, when you need it to break up the flocks feeding on oilseed rape. And, finally, will another decoyer ‘blow up’ your field the day before you intend to shoot? I am always relieved to see pigeons feeding strongly on the field we intend to shoot the next day, as it usually means they have not been disturbed recently. That is why we always do our final recce on the day before we intend to shoot.

Scouting structure

So, how do we structure our scouting trips? It would be impractical to look at every field on every farm that we can shoot over, so we try to eliminate certain fields, or even certain farms, depending on the time of year. Because we know what is growing in every field on our permissions, we can narrow them down by recognising what the pigeons are likely to be feeding on.

For example, we know that pigeons will desert the pea fields as soon as laid barley becomes available, and we also know that they will leave the rape fields in the winter once local pheasant shoots flail their cover strips. Knowing this, there’s actually only a limited number of fields to investigate at any given time of year. Of course, we are still alert to all situations, including ones where pigeons attack certain crops unexpectedly, something I witnessed recently.

I had stopped on the roadside to check if a field of winter beans had been harvested, a cursory glance soon established that it had not. I was about to drive away when I noticed a pigeon fluttering over the standing crop and then suddenly disappear from view.

I then walked down a tramline and noticed the field had been sprayed recently, to kill the grass weeds, and had popped the seeds from the ripening pods. From these tramlines rose in excess of 500 pigeons, leading to a very nice day of 147 birds.

Stacking as many odds in your favour as possible is the only way to consistently kill large numbers of pigeons, but if you cannot find them on any of your permissions, do what the late Archie Coats used to advise: “Go home and mow the lawn”.

“From these tramlines rose in excess of 500 pigeons. ”