In article ,
"BAC" writes:
|
| The grey squirrel reference was a joke, of course.

Of course :-)

| The increase in collared dove population is an interesting point, because
| they are relative newcomers, and there does seem to be a correlation between
| their establishment here and the sparrow decline, although that may merely
| be coincidence. What is the 'realistic causal chain' you have in mind,
| though?

Winter and early spring feed. With the major reduction in fields left in
stubble over winter, the number of horses etc., seeds are in limited supply.
Pigeons are much larger than sparrows, and bully them out of the way (as
well as eating much of what is available). It's one of the many plausible
speculations.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...


| The increase in collared dove population is an interesting point,
because
| they are relative newcomers, and there does seem to be a correlation
between
| their establishment here and the sparrow decline, although that may
merely
| be coincidence. What is the 'realistic causal chain' you have in mind,
| though?

Winter and early spring feed. With the major reduction in fields left in
stubble over winter, the number of horses etc., seeds are in limited
supply.
Pigeons are much larger than sparrows, and bully them out of the way (as
well as eating much of what is available). It's one of the many plausible
speculations.

Not in my garden they don't. They co-habit very happily.

I think that there are local variations in the reports of sparrow numbers.
We have as many as ever, if not more. I used to count them for BTO but it
became impossible. There are no more collar doves than before, just one
breeding pair and their offspring until it's independent (perhaps they're
territorial)

Mary

In article ,
Malcolm writes:
|
| Which is why I doubt that Murton said it.
|
| Well, you're wrong.

It is possible. However, of the couple of dozen times I have checked
up on your claims, in over 3/4 of the cases you have misquoted. I do not
know why, but it is irrelevant - all it means is that I am not prepared
to take your word for it when you say that "X says Y".

| I got caught before by Dr O
| misquoting Stace, and maligned Stace by assuming that Dr O's quote was
| correct.
|
| I did not misquote Stace. My quote was 100% word-for-word correct, as a
| comparison between my post and the book will confirm. Your memory is at
| fault. Please apologise.

I was not referring to that case, but to a much earlier one - actually,
if I recall, more than one. I shall bother asking you to apologise.

| What you did was to malign Stace because you didn't bother to find out
| by contacting him, as I did, exactly what he meant by the terminology he
| used. When I posted what Stace had said to me, you thanked me.

I did not malign him in that case. I said that his usage was either an
error or he had used a new and bizarre definition of the word "native".
It turned out to be the latter.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
"BAC" writes:
|
| The grey squirrel reference was a joke, of course.

Of course :-)

| The increase in collared dove population is an interesting point,
because
| they are relative newcomers, and there does seem to be a correlation
between
| their establishment here and the sparrow decline, although that may
merely
| be coincidence. What is the 'realistic causal chain' you have in mind,
| though?

Winter and early spring feed. With the major reduction in fields left in
stubble over winter, the number of horses etc., seeds are in limited
supply.
Pigeons are much larger than sparrows, and bully them out of the way (as
well as eating much of what is available). It's one of the many plausible
speculations.


Thanks for that.

"Sue" wrote in message
reenews.net...


They did used to attack my veg and strip the broccoli until we netted
the plants, but they also make a horrible mess everywhere they go. The
the birdbath for instance: I go and clean it out and add fresh water -
then the pigeons arrive, throw their weight about so the other birds
can't get a look in, have a nice drink and then turn round and
poop in it!

Wood pigeons don't use our bird bath at all - the collar doves do. All the
small birds deposit in it though :-) I clean it regularly.

They're the same on the birdtable if I put any loose food out, hogging
the lot and making a fine old mess. I wouldn't mind if there were only
one or two, but they seem to be taking over the neighbourhood like some
sort of avian gangster mob! ;-)

Tht's a shame, it's not my experience though.

I've threatened to get an air gun, but I'm probably too much of a softie
to use it really.

Well, I do like pigeon breasts ...

Mary

--
Sue

"Sue" wrote in message
reenews.net...

"Mary Fisher" wrote
"Sue" wrote
That's the general feeling round here in Norfolk. A couple of decades
back the farmers would have regular organised county-wide woodpigeon
shooting days. That doesn't seem to happen now, and we do have many
more pigeons around. You sometimes see vast flocks of them feeding in
fields, and there are definitely more making a nuisance of themselves
in our garden than there used to be when we moved here in 1980.

By 'nuisance' do you mean that they're eating your vegetables?

That's the only sort of nuisance I can think of. I net my (admittedly
small) vegetable plots to prevent that.

They did used to attack my veg and strip the broccoli until we netted
the plants, but they also make a horrible mess everywhere they go. The
the birdbath for instance: I go and clean it out and add fresh water -
then the pigeons arrive, throw their weight about so the other birds
can't get a look in, have a nice drink and then turn round and
poop in it!

They're the same on the birdtable if I put any loose food out, hogging
the lot and making a fine old mess. I wouldn't mind if there were only
one or two, but they seem to be taking over the neighbourhood like some
sort of avian gangster mob! ;-)

Perhaps if you stopped putting out food it would help, especially if the
other birds are not getting any.

Alan

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article ews.net,
Sue writes

"Nick Maclaren" wrote
Malcolm writes:
|
| If the birds weren't shot, the mortality would go down and their
| life-expectancy up.

That is extremely unclear, and might be the converse of the truth. It
will depend very much on how close they are to overpopulation at the
stressful times of year.

It is quite possible that stopping shooting them would cause an
increase in their population, and a consequent increase in their
mortality rate and a reduction in their life expectancy. That is what
often happens to prey species with effectively no predation - as is
the case for wood pigeons in many parts of the UK.

That's the general feeling round here in Norfolk. A couple of decades
back the farmers would have regular organised county-wide woodpigeon
shooting days. That doesn't seem to happen now, and we do have many more
pigeons around. You sometimes see vast flocks of them feeding in fields,
and there are definitely more making a nuisance of themselves in our
garden than there used to be when we moved here in 1980.

But that doesn't seem to agree with Nick's suggestion that an increase
in population would lead to an increase in mortality and a reduction in
life expectancy which would bring the population back down again.

No, it doesn't, but I don't think Nick is the only person to think what he
thinks about the subject. I have seen it suggested elsewhere that the
farming community came to believe that the traditional autumn culls of
wood
pigeons actually increased the numbers surviving the winter to breed the
following spring. If so, that might explain Sacha's observation that the
wood pigeon shoots have been reduced, although not, as you say, her
subsequent observation this has led to an increase in the wood pigeon
population :-)


What's wrong with woodpigeons in gardens, anyway?

The mess and the reduction of other wildlife.

Alan

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
. net...

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...


| What's wrong with woodpigeons in gardens, anyway?

In moderation, nothing. The problem is that they don't have appropriate
predation pressure in the UK.

Except by man. I eat a lot of wood pigeon :-)

How on earth do you catch them?

Alan

"michael adams" wrote in message
...

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Malcolm writes:
|
| If the birds weren't shot, the mortality would go down and their
| life-expectancy up.

That is extremely unclear, and might be the converse of the truth. It
will depend very much on how close they are to overpopulation at the
stressful times of year.

It is quite possible that stopping shooting them would cause an
increase
in their population, and a consequent increase in their mortality rate
and a reduction in their life expectancy. That is what often happens
to prey species with effectively no predation - as is the case for
wood pigeons in many parts of the UK.


Are you saying that, for a given ecosystem, only a certain maximum number
of
a population of birds can be expected to survive the winter, regardless
of
how many more than that number started the winter?


All other things being equal any given ecosysyem can only produce
a limited amount of food which can only support a limited number of
birds.

Given the rate at which birds such as wood pidgeons can reproduce
its fairy clear that all other things being equal they will exhaust
the food resources of any given ecosystem within a few generations.
With surplus birds either moving elsewhere - which doesn't really
soleve anything, or simply dying from starvation. Thus maintaining
an equilibrium.

We have been plagued with Parakets (SP?) for many years, some idiot, years
ago decided he could no longer cope with them, so released them into the
wild, and they bred as though there was no tomorrow, the noise they made was
almost as loud as the aircraft which pass over from Heathrow.

I haven't seen one this year at all, what could have happened to them, there
were literaly hundreds of the things.

Alan

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
. net...

"Sue" wrote in message
reenews.net...


They did used to attack my veg and strip the broccoli until we netted
the plants, but they also make a horrible mess everywhere they go. The
the birdbath for instance: I go and clean it out and add fresh water -
then the pigeons arrive, throw their weight about so the other birds
can't get a look in, have a nice drink and then turn round and
poop in it!

Wood pigeons don't use our bird bath at all - the collar doves do. All the
small birds deposit in it though :-) I clean it regularly.

They're the same on the birdtable if I put any loose food out, hogging
the lot and making a fine old mess. I wouldn't mind if there were only
one or two, but they seem to be taking over the neighbourhood like some
sort of avian gangster mob! ;-)

Tht's a shame, it's not my experience though.

I've threatened to get an air gun, but I'm probably too much of a softie
to use it really.

Well, I do like pigeon breasts ...

Mary


Seems a waste to ignore the pigeon chest.

"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
. net...

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...


| What's wrong with woodpigeons in gardens, anyway?

In moderation, nothing. The problem is that they don't have appropriate
predation pressure in the UK.

Except by man. I eat a lot of wood pigeon :-)

How on earth do you catch them?

sigh

I buy them from the game dealer.

Alan

"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article ews.net,
Sue writes

"Nick Maclaren" wrote
Malcolm writes:
|
| If the birds weren't shot, the mortality would go down and their
| life-expectancy up.

That is extremely unclear, and might be the converse of the truth.
It
will depend very much on how close they are to overpopulation at the
stressful times of year.

It is quite possible that stopping shooting them would cause an
increase in their population, and a consequent increase in their
mortality rate and a reduction in their life expectancy. That is
what
often happens to prey species with effectively no predation - as is
the case for wood pigeons in many parts of the UK.

That's the general feeling round here in Norfolk. A couple of decades
back the farmers would have regular organised county-wide woodpigeon
shooting days. That doesn't seem to happen now, and we do have many
more
pigeons around. You sometimes see vast flocks of them feeding in
fields,
and there are definitely more making a nuisance of themselves in our
garden than there used to be when we moved here in 1980.

But that doesn't seem to agree with Nick's suggestion that an increase
in population would lead to an increase in mortality and a reduction in
life expectancy which would bring the population back down again.

No, it doesn't, but I don't think Nick is the only person to think what
he
thinks about the subject. I have seen it suggested elsewhere that the
farming community came to believe that the traditional autumn culls of
wood
pigeons actually increased the numbers surviving the winter to breed the
following spring. If so, that might explain Sacha's observation that the
wood pigeon shoots have been reduced, although not, as you say, her
subsequent observation this has led to an increase in the wood pigeon
population :-)


What's wrong with woodpigeons in gardens, anyway?

The mess and the reduction of other wildlife.

Woodpigeons don't reduce other wildlife. They don't predate on any bird,
insect, amphibion or mammal. In my experience they don't cause any mess
either.



Alan

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 3/8/06 10:58, in article ,
"DB01" wrote:


"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
. net...

"DB01" wrote in message
...


How do you discourage the magpies? We do get a couple trying to enter the
ivy covered poplar that all the small birds live

They're a pest and a pain, handsome though they are. The old country
people
used to inject an egg with poison and put it into nests the magpies were
plundering - or shoot them, I'm afraid.
--
Sacha

A much maligned species.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/unwant...gpies/diet.asp

"Malcolm" wrote in message
...


Anyway, as you must never be wrong, even when you are, and as this thread
has strayed a long way from gardening, I won't be bothering to respond to
you anymore on this.

Thank god for that!


--
Malcolm

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
. net...

"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article ews.net,
Sue writes

"Nick Maclaren" wrote
Malcolm writes:
|
| If the birds weren't shot, the mortality would go down and their
| life-expectancy up.

That is extremely unclear, and might be the converse of the truth.
It
will depend very much on how close they are to overpopulation at the
stressful times of year.

It is quite possible that stopping shooting them would cause an
increase in their population, and a consequent increase in their
mortality rate and a reduction in their life expectancy. That is
what
often happens to prey species with effectively no predation - as is
the case for wood pigeons in many parts of the UK.

That's the general feeling round here in Norfolk. A couple of decades
back the farmers would have regular organised county-wide woodpigeon
shooting days. That doesn't seem to happen now, and we do have many
more
pigeons around. You sometimes see vast flocks of them feeding in
fields,
and there are definitely more making a nuisance of themselves in our
garden than there used to be when we moved here in 1980.

But that doesn't seem to agree with Nick's suggestion that an increase
in population would lead to an increase in mortality and a reduction in
life expectancy which would bring the population back down again.

No, it doesn't, but I don't think Nick is the only person to think what
he
thinks about the subject. I have seen it suggested elsewhere that the
farming community came to believe that the traditional autumn culls of
wood
pigeons actually increased the numbers surviving the winter to breed the
following spring. If so, that might explain Sacha's observation that the
wood pigeon shoots have been reduced, although not, as you say, her
subsequent observation this has led to an increase in the wood pigeon
population :-)


What's wrong with woodpigeons in gardens, anyway?

The mess and the reduction of other wildlife.

Woodpigeons don't reduce other wildlife. They don't predate on any bird,
insect, amphibion or mammal. In my experience they don't cause any mess
either.

But they do destroy my vegetables!