What is that on my garden gate?

[AlMorr]

Not sure what this bird 🐦 is sitting on my garden gate, could be a Wood Pigeon

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

I believe it is, Al. They are as common as a very common thing in our part of the world.

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to IannodaTruffe]

I often hear it cooing but very seldom see it, that photo was the second one I took, the first one I took was taken a fraction of a second after he flew off.

[RunaroundSue in reply to IannodaTruffe]

We haven't had many in the garden for ages, but there are 4 regulars now

[MoliJ Graduate]

It is a wood pigeon. People ate them when I was a child.

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to MoliJ]

Ouch, I don't think they do that nowadays.

[RunaroundSue]

I think it is a wood pigeon.

We once had a homing pigeon in our garden. We read the number on the ring on its foot and found a website that told us where it was from.

We spoke to a lady who said it was probably resting and asked us to feed it until it was ready to fly home. It stayed for a few days although it flew off somewhere else at night, returning to dine at our place during the day.

Then it disappeared. I hope it got home safely.

Some time later we saw another exhausted looking pigeon at Chepstow Castle. I fed it with a piece of cereal bar. Later we saw it again looking more lively.

I offered the rest of the cereal bar to one of my nephews. He asked whether it was ok for humans (yes of course, I always carry pigeon food in my bag!) then gave some to his brother. Once his official foodtaster had tried it he ate his own

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to RunaroundSue]

I think there is a nest in the tree 🎄 on the right side of the photo.

[RunaroundSue in reply to AlMorr]

We have been lucky this year. We have had several species nesting in the ivy and hedge plus blue tits in a box.

A week or so ago there were robins, adult and young all over the place. On the wheelbarrow, on the pea and bean stakes, in the tree and if course the traditional robin perch - the fork handle!

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to RunaroundSue]

Of course Sue you live in the countryside where you can run a lot, I live a 10 minutes walk from the countryside and also have a lot of parkland and that loch I run, walk and cycle round, its much nicer than living in the centre of a city.

[RunaroundSue in reply to AlMorr]

Not in the countryside but nice places to walk in all directions from the house. A village some miles away from the city centre.

Our garden backs on to a primary school playing field so lots of hedges and trees around us.

We have nice views from the bedroom across Cheshire so it is great on bonfire night, we see all the fireworks.

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to RunaroundSue]

Sounds like a very nice place to live.

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to RunaroundSue]

As I type this post, I can hear it cooing away, any suggestions for a name?! 🙄

[Matlins Graduate]

A wood pigeon, we have a pair nesting out the back in our neighbours garden.

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to Matlins]

It's nice listening to it cooing.

[RunaroundSue in reply to AlMorr]

Mmm, I didn't think that the other day. For no apparent reason one of our smoke alarms woke us up in the early hours. Then having got back to sleep a pigeon decided to coo outside our window and woke me up again just as it was getting light.

I did manage to get back to sleep though

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to RunaroundSue]

Goodness, the smoke alarm going off in the middle of the night, I hope it was a false alarm, then that darned wood pigeon waking you up later on, I just hope it didn't affect your running.

[RunaroundSue in reply to AlMorr]

It was thankfully. I test both alarms once a week. But the next day I took them both down to hoover them. With the windows open all the time we are getting plenty of visitors - spiders, moths, little beetles. This afternoon I picked up what I thought was a piece of green plastic on the stairs - it was a very pretty shield bug. Lucky I didn't stand on it.

I can't remember if it was a running day after the alarm. If so I don't think it affected my performance

[Timotea Graduate]

Wood Pidgeon! Wretched things have eaten the tops of all my peas....

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to Timotea]

Sorry about that Timotea, very annoying the pigeon eating the top of your peas.

[Timotea Graduate in reply to AlMorr]

Have netted them now!

[RunaroundSue in reply to Timotea]

Boo.

[SueAppleRun Graduate]

Lovely to see and i’m sure everyone is right in identifying your wood pigeon

Yes they were eaten in years gone by, pigeon pie being a staple of country folks diet

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to SueAppleRun]

Is there any difference between that type of pigeon and the type you tend to get in railway stations or Trafalgar Square or are they just the same?

[SueAppleRun Graduate in reply to AlMorr]

I’m not sure about differences I’m afraid, I looked them up and there are loads of them, a friend used to have racing pigeons but they looked the same to me

Shame my dad wasn’t still here he’d have known for sure

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to SueAppleRun]

👍

[Alson Graduate in reply to AlMorr]

Same family, different species. Wood pigeons are a bit bigger and always have a white band around the back of the neck, when they are in flight they have white bars across their wings (from front to back). Trafalgar Square pigeon is Columba Livia species and wood pigeon is Columba palumbus. (If I remember correctly). Hope this helps

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate in reply to Alson]

Thank you very much Alson explaining about pigeons, that is a excellent answer to my question 👍