Has anyone shot them in winter?
Wintertime shooting is problematic.
The birds form large flocks, anything up to six or seven hundred strong. Whilst this sounds good it isn't...because they all react as one bird. A couple of shots at them and often enough that's it for the day. Your fieldcraft needs to be on top line and you need a bit of luck to get a decent bag.
A lot of areas where the woodies are feeding form part of driven pheasant or partridge shoots; owners and 'keepers would much rather not have someone disturbing the ground.
Probably the best fun shooting is flighting them into their roost woods. At the end of January the flocks are breaking up and the game shooting has finished, so for a couple of months I'm out and about in the early evenings. I'll take the camera with me this time, though it's a difficult subject; let's see.
I visit each wood no more than once a fortnight to avoid scaring them away. You don't get big numbers; ten would be a really nice score, but they come in high and swinging on the wind, curling and dropping. It's great dog work too, Fido needs to be a good marker (as much by sound as anything) and not frightened to get into heavy blackberry thickets.
One point I omitted from my first post...the European Woodpigeon is about the biggest of all pigeons at around 10-12 ounces. Quite a bit bigger than a US type dove.
Oh yes, racing pigeons have a characteristic flight, much different from a woodies'. In turn the woodpigeon has very distinctive white wing bars; you can see them in the pics I posted. So there isn't much excuse for the one I plugged a few years back!
regards
Eug
