To dispose of a pigeon

"It's not against any religion // To want to dispose of a pigeon" sang Tom Lehrer in "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park".  Let's leave aside the accuracy of that statement (I'm pretty sure it's against the tenets of Buddhism, and I think quite a few Christians and adherents of some other faiths would have a problem with avicide other than in the cause of providing a meal).  I'm mostly happy for pigeons to visit my garden, with the occasional exception of when they peck at the vegetables or the plum buds (in which case we shoo them off, rather than poison them).  But when I have a dead bird on my hands, I do like to dispose of it decently.

Shallow grave

Down between the doronicums and the daffodils was a neat, low mound of soil, with the wing of a woodpigeon showing through at the top.  The two thoughts that came to mind, almost simultaneously, were: 1) who put that there? and 2) how much of the pigeon is attached to the wing?  (The answer to the second question proved to be - all of it.)  I would guess that it was buried by a fox; foxes will occasionally bury their prey, with the intention of coming back for it another day.  I remember one day not long after we moved here when, digging in a flowerbed, I unearthed the perfectly preserved head of a cock pheasant (no sign of the rest of the bird); it was a bit of a Godfather moment, albeit with a different sort of head and a different sort of bed.  Burying a pigeon, as I've noted on this blog previously, isn't easily done in this garden, and the fox had not selected the deepest soil for the purpose, with the poor bird really only three-quarters covered.  What surprised me was how neatly the fox had done it; I would have expected to see signs of scraping and other soil disturbance all around but no, nothing of the sort.  Fortunately that bed is in need of renovation and serious weeding, and no plants had been disturbed.

So - the old problem of where to bury a pigeon (properly).  Last year we had a short length of fence installed behind the summerhouse, and when the holes for the supports were dug I was surprised how deep the soil was there.  I hadn't seen a hole that deep in this garden since we hired a mini-JCB to excavate the pond.  Not having a JCB or even a particularly sharp spade to hand, I could only manage to get down about 25cm or so, but it was enough to give the pigeon a more appropriate burial; and I put a couple of bricks on top, just in case the fox returned and wanted to dig up its supper.

Meanwhile the plum tree is blooming nicely, with not too much pigeon damage so far!