I love the way woodpigeons strut their plump bodies about on the lawn, peering intently into the wet grass as if looking for something they lost earlier.
The woodpigeons are back. Not that they had gone away, just that I’ve noticed them a lot over the last week. I love the way they strut their plump bodies about on the lawn, peering intently into the wet grass as if looking for something they lost earlier.
We regularly get a pair in the garden, or sitting on the fence. There were four earlier this year, and I’m guessing this represented two generations. We don’t have large enough trees in our garden, so the nest must be in one of the Lombardy poplars or sycamores a few gardens down.
The second best thing about woodpigeons (after their lovely scientific name — Columba palumbus) is their cooing. I’ve just been listening to a recording of them on the RSPB website, and … I can’t quite work out why, but I find this an incredible evocative noise. It’s definitely not the weather now, but it just reminds me of summer. I cannot work out why I feel this. I must have heard them as a child one summer holiday and it lodged in my subconscious until December 2008. Weird.
All the books say that woodpigeons are only likely to be confused with rock doves (the common pigeon from which domesticated and racing pigeons have been bred) or the stock dove, but when I’ve been with non-birders the white neck marks have got people muddled with collared doves, even though these birds are much smaller.
The easiest way to recognise them, without even seeing them is to listen to their cooing. Wood pigeons have a five-note call, collared doves only three.
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