The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: arobwk on October 09, 2020, 10:09:21 pm

Title: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: arobwk on October 09, 2020, 10:09:21 pm
While I know WPs breed early in the year and can then, potentially, have more than one brood, what are they doing trying to mate this late in the year? 
While tidying parent's garden today (for a tidy look on my mother's 90th b/day on Monday) there was a duo of WP males chasing a female:  they stayed around/moved between the birch trees for quite a while and eventually I noticed one of the males actually mounting the female. 
What on earth is going to come of that?  Do they normally just "carry on" until a brood fails to hatch or chicks fail to survive for what-ever reason?   (I've not noticed this before;  which doesn't mean it is actually unusual.)
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Blondie on October 10, 2020, 07:24:29 am
I think their usual breeding season is April - October but they have been recorded breeding in every month. So although later in the year it’s not that usual for them to still be trying :)
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Goatherd on October 10, 2020, 08:31:27 am

   Happy Birthday to your mum
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Buttermilk on October 10, 2020, 10:32:07 am
They try to breed all year round here.
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: arobwk on October 11, 2020, 03:40:57 pm
But can they sustain late broods?  (I know they provide breast milk to their young, but ....)
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Rupert the bear on October 11, 2020, 03:48:10 pm
The ones here are still on the go , the question is , puff or shortcrust pastry ?
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: arobwk on October 11, 2020, 04:47:31 pm
The ones here are still on the go , the question is , puff or shortcrust pastry ?


Short-crust every time for me or, even better, proper pasty pastry.  (I have no idea how to make the latter so don't ask.)

Pigeon pasty - now there's a thought and it has a certain ring to it (no pun intended) doesn't it ?!

In passing:  my paternal grand-mother had two pasty recipes - the standard steak, potato, onion & turnip (swede to most of you) and then she had the bacon, potato and leek pasty.  I've no idea how she prepared her leeks, but I have to say her bpl pasties were something else !  She was Cornish born and bred so her bpl pasty was still definitely "Cornish".  Of course, which ever recipe, the pasty-ends always overlapped both sides of the plate !!
 
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Fleecewife on October 11, 2020, 06:29:11 pm
But can they sustain late broods?  (I know they provide breast milk to their young, but ....)


Err....I think it's crop milk.  Pigeons do have breasts but they don't have nipples and they don't produce milk  :eyelashes:


Our pigeons live in a gun-free enclave, as long as they stay off my winterbrassicas  :huff:
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: arobwk on October 11, 2020, 06:58:16 pm
Yeah.  TY for the correction [member=4333]Fleecewife[/member]  :)
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Fleecewife on October 11, 2020, 10:40:18 pm
Yeah.  TY for the correction [member=4333]Fleecewife[/member]  :)

Tongue in cheek, [member=152775]arobwk[/member]  ;D

Think what it must be like to be a baby penguin: stuck on the ice in a freezing gale, waiting weeks for your mum to come home with dinner.  At last she gets back and all she has for you is to barf up a gullet full of rancid fish  :yuck:  I'd take the pigeon breast milk any day  :yum:
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: Lesley Silvester on October 11, 2020, 11:49:47 pm
 :roflanim: :roflanim:
Title: Re: Wood pigeon breeding seasons
Post by: arobwk on October 20, 2020, 08:29:52 pm
I've since been told proper pasty pastry is "rough puff" pastry.  I'm not much the wiser about how to make it (or any pastry for that matter) although it's clearly sort-of half way between short-crust and puff.