Wood pigeon vs. Sparrowhawk (1 Viewer)

Feb 4, 2010
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Just got back to the campervan and there's a kerfuffle in the tree about 30 meters away. Wood pigeon and raptor fall out of it....it's a sparrowhawk and the pigeon doesn't seem to be able to fly.

Next thing, another pigeon attacks the hawk and the two have a stand-off on the fence, while the wounded/exhausted one sits on the floor.

All 3 have a scrap on the ground, I'm waving my hands like an idiot :wooo:, and the hawk goes off and sits on the JCB that the campsite have parked nearby, before attempting a swoop and flying off.

The poor pigeon has now waddled over to the bush next to my utility tent and is hiding. It looks a bit worse for wear, to say the least :Sad:

Any predictions on how this is going to end?
 

TheBig1

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interfering with nature rarely ends well..:Sad:

the pigeon will no doubt die from its injuries and the hawk will fly off and kill another bird for its dinner, so 2 dead birds rather than 1

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1_man_and_his_dob(lo)
Feb 4, 2010
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interfering with nature rarely ends well..:Sad:

the pigeon will no doubt die from its injuries and the hawk will fly off and kill another bird for its dinner, so 2 dead birds rather than 1
I'm not sure why I do it, it's just nature and it's what sparrowhawks do, but I'm the same in the garden when one turns up there and attacks the birds I'm feeding.

There's a blue tit in this bush and just now it was making a racket. Next thing, the sparrowhawk jumps out of the bush and is standing on my tent looking at me. It's flown off now, but it obviously knows the pigeon is here.
 

FULL TIMER

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May as well get out there finish it off and take the breast off, dredge with seasoned flour and fry in a little butter, Mmmm. just waiting for my quail to finish cooking now .
 
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1_man_and_his_dob(lo)
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May as well get out there finish it off and take the breast off, dredge with seasoned flour and fry in a little butter, Mmmm. just waiting for my quail to finish cooking now .

:Eeek: I took a couple of pigeon breasts away from the Chester food festival a few years ago. Not that impressed...obviously it needed the flour.

The poor thing seems to be breathing really quickly now :Sad:

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old-mo

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Just got back to the campervan and there's a kerfuffle in the tree about 30 meters away. Wood pigeon and raptor fall out of it....it's a sparrowhawk and the pigeon doesn't seem to be able to fly.

Next thing, another pigeon attacks the hawk and the two have a stand-off on the fence, while the wounded/exhausted one sits on the floor.

All 3 have a scrap on the ground, I'm waving my hands like an idiot :wooo:, and the hawk goes off and sits on the JCB that the campsite have parked nearby, before attempting a swoop and flying off.

The poor pigeon has now waddled over to the bush next to my utility tent and is hiding. It looks a bit worse for wear, to say the least :Sad:

[HI]Any predictions on how this is going to end?[/[/HI]QUOTE]

Tearfully, if I know you.... :cry::winky:
 
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:Eeek: I took a couple of pigeon breasts away from the Chester food festival a few years ago. Not that impressed...o[HI]bviously it needed the flour.
[/HI]
The poor thing seems to be breathing really quickly now :Sad:

chocolate sauce:thumb::thumb:

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Vlad The Impaler

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I'm sorry to say this but you should really go and finish it off.After all it's only suffering because you intervened in the first place.It should be dead by now and sitting in the great oak tree in the sky!






Vlad the exterminator
 
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1_man_and_his_dob(lo)
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Tearfully, if I know you.... :cry::winky:

Oi! What's that supposed to mean? :Eeek:::bigsmile:

I'm sorry to say this but you should really go and finish it off.After all it's only suffering because you intervened on the first place.It should be dead by now and sitting in the great oak tree in the sky!

Assuming a) my waving put the hawk off enough in the first place, b) the second pigeon wouldn't have intervened again, and c) the next person to have walked past (it's a busy site) wouldn't have shifted it, you're probably right :Sad:

I can't even see the pigeon now..it must have shuffled further into the bush. I'm not climbing in there!
 
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pluck clean stuffed with onion and garlic stuffing in tin foil with sprinkling of balsamick vinegar withe sprinkling of shuger then finished off by blow torch or BBQ YUM YUM

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camocam1

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Wood pigeons have a very thick coat of feathers so probably ok and just shaken up and you did a good job of scarring the sparrow hawk away so just have a drink and forget all about it
 

deanroofing

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I love wood pigeons they save my partridge from attacks b**st**d sparrow hawks, buzzards and Magpies, to many predatory birds about now and mink that's why we're loosing our song birds and water birds, in the last 13 years on the farm l do the game keeping on I've caught 53 mink, decimated the moorhen, duck and coot population. Rant over.

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dogman

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:Eeek: I took a couple of pigeon breasts away from the Chester food festival a few years ago. Not that impressed...obviously it needed the flour.

The poor thing seems to be breathing really quickly now :Sad:
Possibly a deep wound to the breast area resulting in the lungs filling up with blood, hence shallow fast breathing prior to death by drowning, best leave nature alone in future, you have "saved" a pigeon from a fairly quick death but condemned it to a slow one, you have endangered another in its simple loyal defence of the wounded one and the sparrow hawk goes hungry but will kill sooner than he might have otherwise. Best leave nature (tooth and claw) alone, ask any wildlife photographer their first rule.
Cal
 

hilldweller

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A fox possibly took it then.

It wasn't that poor sod's day, was it.

This might be him......

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1_man_and_his_dob(lo)
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I seem to be a pigeon death magnet on this trip :Eeek:

Walking up Totnes high street and a Mercedes A-Class trundles past. Next thing, a young woman screams and is then in tears, and there's a flapping noise. Somehow, the Merc had managed to hit a pigeon, which was flapping around on its back for about 20 seconds with one wing left, before it finally died. A couple of people removed the body from the road :Sad:

So, if there are any pigeon Funsters reading this...I'm heading back up the M5 tomorrow, so please keep away because I don't want to see any more avian carnage!
 

hilldweller

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We had a scruffier one than that in our garden a couple of weeks ago.

I can understand that, this one was in St Mark's Square Venice. Even a total loser in Italy has a bit of style.

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GJH

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Neil, you're not the only pigeon death trap.

A few years ago we were driving down the A19 to York when a pigeon took off towards us and hit the top of the windscreen. No idea what happened to it but I don't suppose it survived.

In July this year we were walking into Fleetwood Freeport when a pigeon flew into the glass window above the entrance and dropped like a stone, just missing the couple in front of us.

We've had a few fly into windows at home (chuck them into the shrub border for the foxes).
 

chatter

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Neil you said the hawk sat on your tent giving you the eye, so tell me is your tent leaking now where its tallons were?
Not saying anything about the pidgeon - after all what can you say about nature and wildlife
 
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1_man_and_his_dob(lo)
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Neil you said the hawk sat on your tent giving you the eye, so tell me is your tent leaking now where its tallons were?

To be honest Maggie, the tent appears to be leaking in so many places at the moment, it's difficult to tell :roflmto::cry:

It landed on one of the sleeves which you thread the poles through, and I can't see any obvious damage. Those are the parts where the original waterproof coating seems to be breaking up though, so I doubt it helped!

More Fabsil treatment methinks! :RollEyes:

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