London Locavore: Wood Pigeon

Five wood pigeons and a Rock dove

Lots being written and blogged about the Locavore diet recently, (food footsteps not food miles) but most of it is about growing vegetables or buying vegetables from someone near by.Where's the protein?
A by product of growing your own is crops in the suburbs is raiding by Pigeons and Squirrels, think of it as the Pigeons and Squirrels inviting themselves for a snack and staying to dinner. As the main course.

London's Grey Squirrel population seems to have been hammered by the recent cold  winter so they are off the menu for the time being. For the main course we'll be having  Wood Pigeon - these are the pigeons with a band of white around their necks.

In the UK you're allowed to shoot pests in your garden as long as the projectile doesn't leave the boundary of your property, so having ruled out the .50 sniper rifles, so with your air rifle over seedlings is probably your best bet.

As anyone who's been pigeon shooting with shotguns will tell you they are pretty much pellet proof unless you can entice them into close range, with an air rifle shooting roosting or bait eating birds head or spine shots at about 30 ft are the way to do it.

Pluck and refrigerate - pretty straight forward, if you want to eat the whole bird pluck the feathers in the direction in which they lie otherwise you'll get a lot of rips in the skin. I usually just eat the breasts pan fried but I'm on a nose-to-tail tip at the moment.  Pigeons really seem to benefit from being hung for a week or more, if that not an option, at least stood in the fridge for a couple of days.

While this post was in the making I saw a TV show mention that the manky Rock Doves from Trafalgar square that we think of as flying rats are actually NOT carriers of any diseases that are transferable to humans, then I saw that Jackson Landers AKA our friend The Locavore Hunter has been eating them in the US. You can see his film about it HERE. If I can get myself past the life long assumption that they are inherently unhealthy they represent an unlimited source of free local food. I tried the Rock Dove pictured; didn't die and wasn't able to tell the difference in a blindfold taste test.

If you can't safely shoot where you are, try calling your local pest controllers - once you convince them it's not a crank call - they're very likely to be able to help out as most of them are shooting gents themselves. One pest control guy I spoke to suggested traps and an air pistol are the way forward for the dedicated locavore. The Trapman sells traps for just about anything you'd want to eat trap.

Hardcore Preppers will tell you that as the oil crisis starts to bite this will be how we all get our inner city dinner. For more about the history of Urban hunting see HERE

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Field Sports In Scotland Pt.3

After our detour to the home of golf arrived at Andy's place where LongSword who had been shooting pigeons over wheat and had a stack waiting to be cooked up. He's been plucking them outside and claimed that the blizzard of feathers had been caused when the dogs had got at them. This picture was taken AFTER he'd 'tidied up'.

We feasted on the day's bag. The recipe couldn't be simpler, Pigeon breasts wrapped in Parma Ham seared until the ham is crispy and then left to stand in the oven a 100c for about 20 mins, served with potato salad. And beers.

The next morning I was woken from a deep sleep on the couch to be told people from Andy's Facebook group were demanding I be roused by the cold water method. Fearing that Andy's Facebook pals would lead him into bad ways we packed some sarnies and headed out.

Note: Secondary use for Gear stick - Dog-Chew

Andy dropped Longsword and myself off and we set up on the edge of our second choice of field,
the first being occupied by an Italian shooter we named 'Perazzi'. He was either the most productive Pigeon shooter ever or was rivalling even me for fudged chances, we reckoned he had a semi-auto as we only heard him fire a single shot once in the whole afternoon, and sometimes letting loose strings of four and five shots.

 Longsword had bought a 'Pigeon Magnet' with him. 

Its a car windscreen whipper's motor attached to two arms which rotate.

 You put a pair of the Pigeons you shot the day before on them and from above they imitate the wheeling of two birds coming in to feed.

Longsword was kind enough to lend me this Belgian 20 gauge Side-by-side. 

We spent an excellent afternoon, shooting the breeze, telling tales, and shooting pigeons, well Longsword shot pigeons, I shot fresh air and distinguished myself with an all time low score of 24 for none, zero, zilch  nothing, Nada.

The Excusses: a litany

1. I've not fired a shotgun in about three years
2. The gun was a very poor fit
3. The Coyote god was playing tricks on me
4. It was Longswords birthday and I didn't want to show him up

That's my story and I'm sticking to it
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