Common wood pigeon

Number four, The Starling.

Number three, Wood Pigeon.

We get a lot of them.

Number two, Blue Tit.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Bird Notes, Part Seven Flights of Woodpigeons A marked increase in the numbers of the woodpigeon, Columba palumbus, has taken place in Norfolk, attributable, Stevenson says, in a great degree to the extension of our fir plantations, added to their immunity at the present time from the attacks of their natural enemies, crows, magpies and hawks, now almost exterminated as residents amongst us through the strict preservation of game.

Numbers build in the neighbouring country.

The coo of the ringdove is perhaps the most familiar sound to be heard in the wooded surroundings of the broadlands, and the noisy flip-flap of its wings is frequently heard as one moves along by the country roadside.

Withers.

Woodpigeon, coo-pee-coo, me and my poor two, two sticks across and a little bit of moss, and it will do, do, do.

Knots.

The pigeon never knoweth woe, until a-benting it doth go.

Evil companions bring more hurt than profit.

The Fowler and the Ringdove.

A Fowler took his gun and went into the woods a-shooting.

He spied a Ringdove among the branches of an oak, and intended to kill it.

He clapped the piece to his shoulder and took his aim accordingly; but just as he was going to pull the trigger, an adder, which he had trod upon under the grass, stung him so painfully in the leg that he was forced to quit his design, and threw his gun down in a passion.

The poison immediately infected his blood, and his whole body began to mortify, which, when he perceived, he could not help owning it to be just.

Evil companions bring more hurt than profit.

The Fowler and the Ringdove.

A Fowler took his gun and went into the woods a-shooting.

He spied a Ringdove among the branches of an oak, and intended to kill it.

He clapped the piece to his shoulder and took his aim accordingly; but just as he was going to pull the trigger, an adder, which he had trod upon under the grass, stung him so painfully in the leg that he was forced to quit his design, and threw his gun down in a passion.

The poison immediately infected his blood, and his whole body began to mortify, which, when he perceived, he could not help owning it to be just.

March.

The Wood Pigeon.

The wood pigeon is many things to many men.

To the farmer, who has some claim to priority of verdict, it is a curse, even as the rabbit in Australia, the lemming in Norway, or the locust in Algeria.

The tiller of the soil, whose business brings him in open competition with the natural appetites of such voracious birds, beasts, or insects, regards his rivals from a standpoint which has no room for sentiment.

And the wood pigeons are to our farmers, particularly in the well-wooded districts of the West Country, even as Carthage was to Cato the Censor, something to be destroyed.

It is this attitude of the farmer which makes the wood pigeon pre-eminently the bird of February.

All through the shooting season just ended, a high pigeon has proved an irresistible temptation to the guns, whether cleaving the sky above the treetops, doubling behind a broad elm, or suddenly swinging out of a gaunt fir.