My observations are confined to south Hampshire, where I have a rough shoot. Usually, each winter, varying numbers of woodpigeons gather to roost at night in a 3½-acre wood there, about a mile from the sea wall.

It is rather difficult to understand why this little, quaintly shaped wood should be so favoured by the birds to roost in, when only two or three miles away there are many much larger ones and the New Forest. In shape, it is like a bent pear, with its point towards the prevailing south-west wind.

Although named Fir Copse, it is composed of high oak trees to the north end and