Wood Pigeon Damage.

Three days ago the flower buds on my greengage tree were swelling and showing promise of a great display and hopefully a good fruit set, frost permitting.  But the local wood pigeons decided that I didn't need any greengages this year.  They have stripped seventy five percent of the fruit buds about a week prior to them opening.  But am I angry?  Do I care?  Yes to both.  Until this happened I have left the local pigeon population alone, there's plenty of clover in the grass sward and they love it, I'm happy for them to eat as much as they want.  But they have just reminded me that they are nothing more than flying rabbits, this is war.  The good part of this is that they taste much better than rabbit.  Ha!

Three successive shots with my ancient air rifle marked the start of my war with the local pigeons and a continuance of hostility with the local rabbit population.  Pigeon for tea, very nice, unless your'e a blossom destroying pigeon of course then it's not as much fun.

I accept a certain amount of wildlife damage, I have planted two cherry trees and don't expect to ever harvest a single cherry.  The blackbirds will eat the lot just before they are ripe.  I have several hazel trees and don't expect to get many, if any, nuts.  The squirrels and jays will take the lot before I get a chance.  I accept this as part of the natural order of things.  But I don't see why I should accept rabbits destroying whole trees when there is ample grass and equally, I won't accept pigeons destroying the fruit buds before they have chance to open.  I plucked the pigeons under the tree, scattering the feathers liberally on the grass and put the remains of the birds under the tree after I had dressed them.  Even pigeons are not stupid enough to ignore the warning, or are they?  I hope I won't have to continue the war until next year, but we shall see.

The first blossom on my Lizzy plum.  The tree was planted last year as a one year old maiden.  I shouldn't really let it fruit this year but if it sets fruit I will leave most of it on as I'm impatient to try the fruit.  Lizzy is my only non European style plum and should be the earliest ripening.

The flowers below are on the older of my two Haganta trees.  This should be the latest ripening of all my plums, but it is starting to flower at the same time as the earliest ripening plum.