[Music]
You don't have to be a game chef like Mark Gilchrist to appreciate that no-one wants
pigeon poo in their sandwiches.
But when the skies start to darken thanks to bird numbers around wheat storage barns
it's time to send some of them to the big grain store in the sky.
So you have got a few pigeons here.
Got a lot of pigeons, a lot of ferals now built up over a long time now.
What sort of problems do they cause you?
We are in various schemes that we are not really allowed to have any sort of pigeons
around the grain stores, food stores.
You just don’t want birds messing in the stores.
So hopefully we will be able to sort them out today.
That is what I am hoping.
You have very kindly let me shoot a few pigeons here, so the least we can do is try and do
some feral pigeons.
That would be good.
You kindly put some wheat out for us, in strategic spots.
There must be about £500, £600 worth of wheat on the floor there, the way the price
is at the moment.
If only.
We will be gathering it all up afterwards.
When Roy has finished he will individually pick up each grain and put it back into the
store for you.
I will be checking .
Mark is joined by Roy Lupton with his Air Arms air rifle.
To avoid damaging the roofs we need some subtle, more refined shooting.
Giving them both barrels will win no friends here.
With a little of farmer Mark's precious wheat on the ground we're hoping to get the birds
dropping in - but first we're going to have a quick whizz around
the yard.
Roy takes a few birds but the guys think that the best bet is a two-pronged approach.
Roy picking the birds off with the air rifle - Mark keeping them moving with the Maxus
on the neighbouring field.
What is the game?
What are we going to play at today?
We are going to have to get you to shoot them off the roof and I will go down to the bottom
there with a shotgun, because every time that bunch comes up.
If they come out and I can get 3 or 4 out of the bunch and they go back in, we are very
quickly going to rack up some numbers.
I think if we can just pick them off when they are 25, 30 yards with the air rifle and
you keep them moving, hopefully we will get a better chance.
Well we will go and give that a go.
I will go and stand behind that hedge.
I don’t need to build a very good hide as they are only ferals afterall.
OK mate.
With Mark installed - Roy starts working the yard.
The birds are already a bit skittish and half of them have got the flock out of here.
But there's plenty to keep us busy.
Roy is of course happiest taking shots with a backstop.
Although the yard is empty we only reserve skylined shots when the field is the only
place the pellet can fall.
Now, not every shot finds it's mark - and there are some lucky birds out there...
Like a scene from the matrix it's a perfectly timed getaway, ... this second bird gets a
glancing blow to it leg... then there's this wood pigeon feeding on the ground.
Now with the wood pigeons, they are a much tougher creature to kill with the air rifle,
so you want to get a nice head shot if you can.
If he doesn’t hold his head still, I am going to try and go through and hit the spine.
So these are much tougher creatures than the ferals.
He doesn’t really want to hold his head still.
Oh I should have shot the one at the back then, he held his head still for me.
Right there we go, hang on.
What on earth happened there.
So I have just done the replay on that pigeon that was sitting there in front of the coil
of yellow hose there.
Took the shot and you can see that the cross hairs were perfectly on so should have been
absolutely spot on shot for just taking the head out or dropping down into the neck.
You can see perfectly the pellet going off to the left hand side and there is no wind
because we are in a court yard surrounded by barns so it is not windage.
That can be down to the deformity in the pellet.
That particular pellet might have had a slight crease in it or something like that and that
was enough to just crease the back of his neck, take a few feathers out of the back
of his neck and then away he went.
It does look good though.
Roy has zerod the rifle at 30 yards, so when we have a couple of birds around the 50 yard
range we have to start looking at bullet drop more closely...
It all depends on the pellet drop here.
So he is just over 50 yards away.
The pellet drops nicely into the chest.
There we go.
So that was just over 50.
As Roy reloads the magazine he finds a damaged pellet..not spotting one earlier might have
been the reason for the woodies' close shave.
So you can see on that pellet there, we have got a big deformity there.
I just put it in the magazine and then noticed the shape it was.
So what I probably did on that wood pigeon is had a pellet in there that was like that
so it is not going to fly true to target.
So that is probably what we are getting.
That is not necessarily the fault of the pellet manufacturer.
That can be just down to the storage of your pellets.
If you have dropped the tin or dropped pellets on the floor and pick them up and put them
back in that is what you can get and so you can get deformities in there.
So it really does pay to be very careful with your pellets and make sure they don’t get
deformed and knocked about too much.
Every now and again we hear a boom from the other side of the farm so we know Mark is
getting some sport.
The real down side is I can’t really shoot up that way and there is quite a lot coming
from that field over there back over the farm, I can’t shoot into the farm obviously and
some are coming inside that line over there I just don’t want to shoot over that way
because it is not long until you get to the road and all the buildings and workers that
way.
So I have only had stuff out in that angle.
I think they will come back, I can’t believe they they will stay away for ever.
Back to the air rifle and Roy gets another couple of good shots off.
This one is an excellent head shot.
It's so important to practice so that you're confident of finding a very small target.
So obviously you can see this pigeon was shot in the back of the head there.
So that is the entry wound there.
He was poking his head up above the gulley and when you are shooting anything with the
air rifle, obviously you have got very little room for error.
So you either want to be taking a head shot, a neck shot, or obviously through the vital
organs, preferably if you can take the spine out as well, they drop on the spot, or tend
to drop on the spot.
So you have only got a very small margin for error though.
When you think that the main part which is going to kill the pigeon is just behind the
eye, so you have got a very small target there.
Probably about the size of a 5 pence piece if you are looking at him side on.
So taking away the feathers and everything else it doesn’t give you much of a target.
So you need to make sure your air rifle is spot on and you have practiced shooting from
lots of different positions so you are used to shooting from a standing position, a leaning
position and what ever
else.
So you ensure your pellet ends up to where you want to hit it.
As the afternoon marches on the number of birds above us is falling- they know something
is up and dead birds on the roof don't help.
Things have also dried up for Mark to so time to call it a day and make further plans to
tackle the problem here.
He was very appreciative we made the effort which is about all we can do.
Well that is about all you can do.
As long as you are trying, it keeps everybody happy.
There is a bit of ferret food there as well.
There are 3 woodies in there some Mark food as well.
There's a bag of about 50 birds, Mark scores about 15 with Roy taking out the rest - all
helping to keep your cheese and pickle sandwich, pigeon free.