Scaring pigeons

Its long mate :laughing:
And while we are on the subject which seems sensitive to some and touches a nerve in others
People who buy 177 or 22 air rifles for such things as pigeons rats squirrels need shooting themselves its cruel and most times is not a clean kill they should be target plinkers only
Not so long back we was removing cormorants from a fishing lake that was being cleared out by a group coming from a SSSI site but we can only shoot (not out the sky) a certain number a year
Drones do work in certain situations

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@uav_hampshire
FYI for a shorter read mate

Depends on whose doing the shooting and how they’re doing it. I used to have permission to shoot at a couple of golf courses to keep the rabbit numbers down, but air rifle only. Wasn’t allowed a real rifle on the course. I practiced my groups on a home made range in the garden and got pretty tight groups out to 25 yards (little to no wind) I never used the air rifle when the wind was above 10mph as the groups would start to get messy. Out of the hundreds of rabbits I have shot with an air rifle I have only had half a dozen gut shots at most, and they were finished off within seconds by hand. How did I get to them within seconds? I always made sure I got as close as I could, usually no more than ten yards, so I could avoid the situation in the first place.

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No, you would be committing an offence as the Oyster Catcher is a listed species and is protected while on and OFF any SSSI.

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Which goes back to my original point earlier in this thread that literally all birds are protected.

I will leave it here please dont take offence im just trying to educate and make aware think of it like when you are approched while flying your drone and Ken and Karen start and you are covered to do so

This licence allows an ā€˜authorised person’[footnote 3] to carry out activities in relation to certain species of ā€˜wild birds’[footnote 4], the ā€˜permitted target species’[footnote 5], for the purposes of preventing ā€˜serious damage’[footnote 6] to ā€˜livestock’[footnote 7], foodstuffs for livestock, crops, vegetables, fruit, fisheries or inland waters.

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I’m not sure of differences between Engerlund and Scotland? But up here you are not even allowed to shoot pigeons for food. They are only allowed to be shot/culled if they are posing a problem to any of the above. They are protected (up here at least) for any other reason. Pretty much the only exceptions are game birds, which are only allowed to be shot/killed during the correct season

Not so long back it was Badgers being culled but i turned that gig down because i like the funny things as nasty as they can be
I have also had a few nice looking foxes scoped up i refused to pull the trigger on
Farm life :roll_eyes:

They’re not so common up here unfortunately. I know they’re being blamed for the spread of TB (I think) south of the border. But if we didn’t keep cattle etc packed into such tight areas it probably wouldn’t be a problem. It’s the same as pigeons and crops to be fair, we give them an easy food source and then blame them for getting an easy meal. Scatter feed for them in town centres and then wonder why there is pigeon shit is all over the place. Gulls too, we leave all our shit lying at our arses and then wonder why we’re being mobbed, easy meals again.

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Re seagulls (ok, twitchers, I know there is no such thing as a seagull, they are all gulls), 20 years ago I spent a long weekend on Flat Holm island in the Bristol Channel (brilliant place, go if you ever have a chance). We got it cheap because it was the gull nesting season, and when we got off the boat we were all handed old umbrellas by the wardens ā€˜to fend off the gulls’. No way was I going to attack some poor defenceless gull with such a weapon, I’m not like that…

It’s only a 5 minute walk from the landing stage to the farmhouse, but my good intentions didn’t last the first 2 minutes, and by the time we’d got there I was laying into the bastards with the best of them. You can hit them quite hard, they’re tough things. I’d never seen them so mob-handed and aggressive.

The island is covered, I mean completely carpeted in chicken bones, which the many thousands of gulls that roost there pick up from the streets of Cardiff or Bristol, and the resorts of Barry, Weston-Super-Mare, Clevedon or Penarth, to feed the chicks. There are chooks on the island for fresh eggs, and these seemed a bit nervous, not surprising being surrounded by the mortal remains of their cousings!

The whole thing is the fault of human activity, and could be sorted if the councils were more diligent in emptying city centre or seaside bins, and if a certain element of revellers didn’t insist on dumping trays of chips half-eaten anywhere they liked…

I don’t think gulls live 20 years, but I can’t help wondering if the loss of my Mini 2SE back in August to a mob of them was repayment for beating them up with the brolly!

Getting back to the OP’s problem, it looks as if drones are not going to be much help, and unless the conditions for air rifle culling are met there is not much he can do about if. Don’t park you car under a tree, and get a cat!

Genetic memory, never know with these b’stards

May i recommend Jonathan Livingston Seagull well worth a read, and you never know you may find some inner peace from it

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Inner peace? Didn’t he fly flat out into a cliff face in pursuit of that?

Yeah, read it years ago, lovely book, quite zen.

Just google the moral of it

And fly because you can ;o)

That should actually become our motto!!!

The SAS had ā€œWho Dares Winsā€

We should have

ā€œWe Fly Because We Canā€

You should get some special badges made up for the shop? I can’t remember who done the rather wonderful ā€œTrees Are Dicksā€ badges for the meet? I’d be quite happy to stump up some cash!!!
But on mine, I want in brackets ā€œSo FUCK OFF and leave me aloneā€

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Bollox, everyone knows it was Del Boy or Kirky when there’s a comp on :rofl:

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@Banjonic Nicola I think

Wow, that’s Clinkadink :rofl:

Going to see if I can get a copy of that or download it :+1:

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