“I happened to estimate up to 20,000 or 30,000 individuals coming to rest at the Herrère dormitory, the Coimères hunting reserve. We are far from the mark this year,” regrets Gérard Pinguet, volunteer counter for the Gironde Hunters’ Federation (FDC33). In fact, the dormitories have not been very busy for several days. At the end of November and beginning of December, there were quite a few birds, but that didn’t last.
Very few birds
Tuesday, December 23, during the counting session, the Coimères dormitory only received visits from around 500 woodpigeons, whereas a few days before, around 7,000 came to sleep there. “It’s the same in the other dormitories in South Gironde, there are very few birds left. It must be about food. Those we see don’t come from far away,” notes Gérard Pinguet.
The situation is not much better in Entre-deux-Mers, where Jean-Pierre Bugeade is observing. The dormitories there empty as quickly as they fill up. “In Sauveterre, 25,000 wood pigeons came to bed at the end of November. It lasted a few days and everything went away. Then 3,000 stayed a few evenings in Saint-Sulpice-de-Pommiers. One day, they disappeared. Tuesday evening, around 6,000 had returned to the Sauveterre dormitory. These are birds that move around a lot in search of food. We had to suspect that the wintering was not going to be fantastic, because we saw a lot of flights coming up during the season to find food. We shouldn’t expect them to come back down because they know there is no food,” he explains.
“Poor”
In the forest zone, counts are usually carried out using microlights. This year, they could not take place due to bad weather conditions. But according to observers on the ground, it is not much better than in agricultural areas. A few woodpigeons are present in the Ciron gallery forest, but very few compared to previous years, when thousands spent the winter there.