WILDLIFE WATCH: Merlin looks at wood pigeons

As I drove around Elgin from late July onwards I saw woodpigeons flying into trees and bushes all around the town carrying twigs to make their flimsy nests. Late July is the peak time for first clutches of eggs to be laid and late August- September for second clutches.

I often see the birds land on trees and bushes with dense foliage and wriggle their way down through the branches to their nests. Nests placed in these sites are more likely to escape predation by carrion crows whereas nests placed on more open mature trees are likely to suffer from the attentions of corvids.

Nesting woodpigeons have become very common within the boundaries of Elgin over the last 15-20 years and their calls around the area where I live are nearly as frequently heard as those of herring gulls. The pigeons have become accustomed to being around people and are quite confiding unlike those living in the wider countryside that are usually very wary of humans.

Up to about six of the birds sometimes feed at my bird table especially during the winter when their autumn supply of food in the form of acorns, beech nuts and grain become scarce.I have noted that when there is a good crop of beech nuts and or acorns on the trees round the River Lossie at Morriston playing fields in Elgin it is not long before flocks of woodpigeons have cleared up nature’s bounty. They can stuff a surprising amount of nuts into their crops with records of 75 acorns and 139 beech nuts being recorded from individual shot birds.

During the main breeding season their food, apart from vegetable matter such as clover and weed seeds, is scarce within the town so at this time of year they are more likely to be feeding on ripening grain out in the nearby countryside. Over the last few weeks I have seen large numbers of the birds pouring into fields of ripe wheat a few kilometres from Elgin. They appeared to be ignoring nearby fields of ripe barley probably because the grains of wheat are easier and quicker to eat because they do not have the long spiky bristles that barley grains have. However, they will feed avidly on ripe barley when it is the only grain available.

During the breeding season much of this food will be converted into “crop milk” for their chicks. Pigeons are unique among birds in that they feed their young on a highly nutritious substance that looks like curdled milk that they manufacture in their crops. The chicks stimulate their parents into regurgitating the crop milk by thrusting their bill into their mouths. The young birds grow rapidly on this nutritious diet and I have read that in days gone by some English country people used to tie the chicks to the nests by their legs to prevent them fledging at the normal time and ensure fatter birds for the pot.

Domestic cats looking for a tasty meal as well sometimes attack the woodpigeons in my garden but they usually end up with only a mouth full of feathers instead of a kill because pigeons are very loose feathered and too portly to grip tightly.

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