Ears to the ground

Patches of flattened barley prove irresistible for woodpigeons, calling for a summer afternoon of crop protection with gun, decoys and dog

- SIMON GARNHAM

This year has been exceptional for growth in my part of the world. A cold dry spring was replaced by steady rain through May. It’s led to a thick crop of barley.

In places, the growth and the rain have been too much. Overnight deluges have flattened the spring-drilled crop almost entirely. They’ve smashed flattened patches into the autumn-sown fields. These puddles of laid barley are proving irresistible for Columba palumbus — the rapaciously hungry woodpigeon.

Bird-scarers of all sorts are no deterrent for a determined woodie on a ‘flightpond’ of flattened barley. Like teal on a great evening flight, they drop in from all angles and I’ve recently enjoyed one such afternoon.

Rise and fall

I’d been watching numbers rise and fall over the preceding 10 days. Upwards of 50 birds would descend to feed in just a few minutes, arriving as singletons and pairs then rising as a flock when startled. They’d head off to other grazing areas and return in dribs and drabs to repeat the cycle.

Pigeons seem to appreciate barley as much as I do. When it’s dry and windy, a breeze appears to dance across a swaying field of ripening barley like sunlight on dappled water. A gust will send iridescent shimmers in kaleidoscopic waves across undulating rolls, troughs and crests.

Barley takes on a life force all of its own in early summer. There are many illustrations of the power it holds in the imagination. It has been grown in this country for more than 3,000 years and is thought by some to be the oldest cultivated crop.