Just for clarity on 'gunwolf's' remark on dove being referred to as 'flying rats', feral pigeons here in the US are rock doves as are most pigeons in the greater European cities, but most of the shooting here was done w/passenger pigeons back in the time of those fist Grand American shoots. The last known passenger pigeon died in 1920 at the Cicinnati, Ohio zoo. And I'd posit that their demise to extinction was due soley to the clearing of their mast or nesting habitat [timber] in the Ohio valley & other parts of New England and did not have anything at all to do with shooting, even though they were taken in large numbers. The 'shot to extinction' myth is revisionist history at its best. It is an important point.
