Wood Pigeon
- Feeding flocks are highly gregarious, and may number many thousands of birds.
- In many parts of Europe the wood pigeon is the favourite prey of the goshawk.
- Though they have been recorded breeding in every month of the year, the peak month for fledging is August.
- The majority of young birds are likely to die within their first 12 months, but the record age for a ringed wild bird is over 16.
- It takes 17 days for an egg to hatch, and a further 30 to 34 days for the chick to fledge.
- Squabs are fed by both parents on a liquid known as crop or pigeon milk.
- A female woody never lays more than two eggs in a clutch, but she may lay as many as six repeat clutches in a year if she loses her eggs.
- The nest is a simple platform of twigs, usually built in a tree. However, where trees are in short supply these adaptable birds will build inside buildings, or even on the ground.
- In winter the pecking rate when feeding increases from around 70 pecks a minute in the morning to over 100 before going to roost.
- Though most of the food is taken on the ground, woodies are remarkably agile when feeding in trees.
- Oilseed rape is a favourite winter food, and partly explains why these birds are thriving in the modern countryside.
- The capacity of the crop is remarkable: it can hold as many as 150 acorns, 1,000 grains of wheat or 200 beans.
- It takes a young woody 16 weeks to acquire its distinctive white neck ring.
- The woody is almost exclusively vegetarian, in winter stuffing its crop to capacity, then digesting the food overnight.
- Many sportsmen still believe that the flocks of small, dark wood pigeons they see in the autumn are migrants from the Continent; they are in fact young birds.
- In Britain populations are largely sedentary, seldom moving more than 10 miles from where they hatched, but northern European birds are strongly migratory, moving south towards the Mediterranean every autumn.
- It is also is a much-valued sporting bird, but despite year-round shooting its number continue to grow.
- This bird is considered to be a major agricultural pest, causing at least £3 million worth of damage to crops annually in the UK.
- It is one of the few birds that thrive in intensively farmed countryside, while it is also equally at home in town parks and suburban gardens.
- Though wood pigeon is the most commonly used name, this bird is also known as the woody, cushat, cushy-do, quist, ringdow and ring dove.
- It’s by far the most numerous large wild bird in Britain, with a population estimated at around 2.5 million pairs.
