For love, not money

When a stubble comes under siege, Tom Payne jumps at the chance to do what he is passionate about, rather than simply what pays the bills

- Tom Payne

When I was a boy — which is starting to feel like a rather long time ago now — pigeons were relatively predictable. Barley was harvested in mid to late August and pigeons went mad for the grain that was left among the stubble. In recent years, though, with the weather getting increasingly warmer, harvest often begins as early as late July.

For all that pigeons love barley stubble, there is something they go even wilder for, which is wheat in its early stages of development when it’s all milky. If you’d told me when I was young that barley stubble would often be devoid of pigeons in the decades to come, I’d have thought you were mad, but it’s happened a lot over the past few years. When the combines start rolling on the barley, the wheat still has a long way to go and the pigeons are gorging themselves on its milky goodness.

On the menu

This summer, however, due to the cold start, the combines didn’t start rolling till later on, and things have reverted to how I remember them being. In much the same way that barley stubble has been neglected of late, oilseed rape stubble has also been overlooked. This summer, however, for the first time in three years, it has been firmly back on the pigeons’ menu.

It should have been a bumper summer, pigeon shooting from dawn till dusk, but sadly I haven’t been able to get out as much as I’d hoped. It seems there is huge pent-up demand to go shooting and the phone has been ringing off the hook with people wanting gun fits and lessons.