Always around

There never seems to be any shortage of pigeons. Whether feeding in a field of corn or rape by day or coming into woodland at dusk, they are always around. Depending on the weather and the time of day, you may have to wait a while for them, but, as William Douglas-Home once wrote in a memorable article for the Field on pigeon-shooting, ‘they always turn up in the end’. They may be shot over decoys in spring and summer or from the shelter of trees on a winter’s afternoon; with no close season there should always be a plentiful supply for the table.

These, of course, are wood pigeons. In addition, and especially in France, there are ‘farmed’ pigeons or squabs raised for meat, rather as they used to be in dovecotes in England, to provide food for the mediaeval lord of the manor when cattle could not be fed through the winter.