Wood-pigeon - 1949

Columba palumbus palumbus

Resident and common.  Dix considered it more numerous in the north-east than elsewhere; this is true to-day, on account of the more wooded nature of this part.  Flocks of winter immigrants are not large, the year 1935 being an exception when thousands were seen in mid-October near Lawrenny (H.A.Gilbert).  Probably breeds regularly Caldey (Bertram Lloyd).

R.M.Lockley, G.C.S.Ingram, H.M.Salmon, 1949, The Birds of Pembrokeshire, The West Wales Field Society

Woodpigeon - 2003-07

It was estimated that there were about 10,000 pairs breeding in Pembrokeshire at the end of the 1984-88 survey. This was based on an average of 25 pairs per occupied tetrad. The 1988-91 National Atlas used an average of about 40 per tetrad for the UK as a whole. The highest concentrations were found in woodland and areas of arable farming, particularly where these habitats were found adjacent to each other.

Woodland and arable farmland makes up only a small proportion of Pembrokeshire which is largely a pastoral county. Considering also that many of the fields are bounded by hedgebanks with few suitable trees for nesting, makes it likely that Woodpigeon density is lower than the UK average. It is notable too that only a 4% increase in distribution was found between the two local surveys, 1984-88 and 2003 – 2007, compared to a 35% increase in Wales as a whole between 1994 and 2007 noted by the BBS. Using an estimated average of 26 pairs per tetrad it is thought that about 11,000 pairs were nesting in the county at the end of 2007.

Graham Rees

 

Fieldwork 2003-07 (based on 490 tetrads)

Red = breeding confirmed = 160

Orange = breeding probable = 235

Yellow = breeding possible = 40

Total tetrads in which registered = 435 (88.8%)

Woodpigeon - 1994

Breeding resident

Mathew (1984) and Lockley et al. (1949) considered the Woodpigeon to be a common resident, most numerous in the wooded north of the county.

Today they breed throughout Pembrokeshire including the islands of Caldey, Skomer and probably Ramsey. Nesting in trees, they are fairly sparsely distributed in open country but more numerous in wooded areas, particularly the conifer plantations. On Skomer, which they colonised in 1970, nests are placed in low brambles and on the ground among bracken, with numbers building up to 30 pairs by 1976 but dropping to an average of 12 pairs in the 1980s. Allowing for the extent of wooded versus open terrain, an average density of 25 pairs per tetrad would suggest a total Pembrokeshire breeding population of about 10,000 pairs.

The extent to which they flock in the winter varies. They usually form groups of just 20 to 50 birds, but sometimes larger flocks are seen, the largest recorded being of 1,700 at Angle Bay on 14 February 1975.

Pembrokeshire birds are probably sedentary, although a few large scale movements have been recorded, such as 4,000 passing over Marloes on 7 December 1986, and they are occasionally seen on the remote islands of Grassholm and the Smalls. However, British Woodpigeons reached Ireland in 1959, a year of exceptional movement (Murton 1965), and one ringed in County Wexford, Ireland, on 13 April 1960 was shot near Carew on 22 September 1960.

Fieldwork 1984-88 (based on 478 tetrads)

Red = breeding confirmed = 174

Orange = breeding probable = 170

Yellow = breeding possible = 75

Total tetrads in which registered = 419 (87.7%)

Donovan J.W. & Rees G.H (1994), Birds of Pembrokeshire

Woodpigeon - 1970s breeding

Red = breeding confirmed

Orange = breeding probable

Yellow = breeding possible

Woodpigeon - 1980s winter

The BTO winter atlas showed that Woodpigeons were present in the majority of 10km squares during the winters of 1981-82, 1982-82 and 1983-84.

The darker the colour, the higher the relative total count for each 10km square.  The darkest blue represents over 246 birds seen in a day. 

Graham Rees

Ring Dove - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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