Did any of you catch the Home Planet radio show on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday afternoon?
The last piece on the show featured a listener asking why woodpigeons were so 'greedy' when she was throwing out her scraps for the garden birds.
An interesting discussion followed, with eminent scientists discussing why the pigeon is almost constantly searching for, and eating, food in cold weather. Whilst they dismissed 'greedy' as merely a human trait, they did agree that the pigeon needs to keep eating because of a 'digestive bottleneck' when eating brassicas in cold weather, which effectively meant they had to eat a hell of a lot of foodstuffs which gave them very little sustenance. Just like our friendly neighbourhood oilseed rape then...
Anyway, the study on which this hypothesis is based was written up back in 1977 would you believe. I have tracked down a copy and will be studying it with interest to see if it highlights anything else useful about the amazing bird and worthwhile quarry, Columba palumbus. If you'd like a copy, email me at theamateurnaturalist@hotmail.co.uk
You can listen to this episode of Home Planet here (Woodie part starts at 24 mins):
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h6zs3/Home_Planet_03_02_2009/
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