Cold comforts

The chillier months offer excellent chances to get on top of numbers of pigeon as they try to find snug shelter, says Mat Manning

- Mat Manning

While I am always excited to see the first green shoots of spring, I must admit I far prefer the cold months to the warm ones. As far as I’m concerned, there are few things more satisfying than wrapping up against the weather and heading out with my airgun on a chilly winter’s afternoon, just as the light is beginning to fade.

When the days are at their shortest, diurnal creatures have less time to forage for food, which tends to make it much easier to catch up with quarry and make the most of those precious hours in the field. Dawn and dusk are by far the best times of day for targeting grey squirrels and I appreciate the fact that there are few hours to pass between these prime times when the days are short.

But my absolute favourite thing about the colder months is that they bring the peak season for shooting pigeon at the roost. It is far from the easiest form of airgun shooting, but I think it is the most rewarding.

Another reason for my fondness for cold weather is probably because we don’t see too much of it where I live in the West Country. A hard frost is something of a novelty here and I don’t doubt I’d probably see things differently if we experienced sub-zero conditions for months on end.

But even our generally mild part of the country received a proper blast of cold weather for a couple of weeks in February. It may not have been anything like the conditions experienced in more northerly areas but we had a week or so when temperatures dropped below -5°C at night and refused to creep above zero by day. Add strong winds to the mix and it felt extremely cold — by our standards anyway.

Decimating