This morning I witnessed a huge movement of Common Woodpigeon flying south over the eastern edge of Beeley Moor towards Matlock. I had parked up on Screetham Lane at about 07:40 and started scanning the fields for Lapwing. In the distance, looking east towards Kelstedge I could see a cloud of birds above the horizon which I realised were Woodpigeon. I scanned across the horizon and there was an unbroken column of birds flying south. The column were all following a similar line, occasionally moving a bit nearer then a bit further away as the column wandered by no more than a km and remained almost continual from 07:45 to at least 08:30 when approaching rain reduced visibility.
Initially I attempted to count them but they were moving quickly and there were too many. Instead I set a 1 minute timer on my phone and counted everything for that time which gave counts of 280, 320, 370, 220, 260. Using an average of 290 around 13k birds had passed me in that time! Visibility was deteriorating but I could still see birds moving in the mist so there were doubtless several thousand more before I lost them in the rain and moved off at 9:00
It was difficult to get a photo as the birds were distant but the image above conveys something of the sight. I've counted 257 birds on the above photo.
Woodpigeon crossing Alicehead
The autumn movements of the Woodpigeon remain something of a mystery in the UK. We do not get large number of immigrants arriving in the winter nor do birds migrate south to continental Europe so it seems likely that these movements are internal within the UK with northern birds moving to the south or south-west.
It was an impressive sight and brought to mind images of Passenger Pigeons migrating in North America.
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