In het bos foerageren wordt een recupererende postduif Columba livia fataal

On Monday 27 May 2019, a blue-check racing pigeon was encountered in Drenthe, busily foraging on a path in mixed woodland (mostly Quercus robur and Pinus sylvestris). The bird took seeds of Pinus sylvestris, of which five were swallowed in 32 seconds (the length of a short film); this took 19 pecks at the forest floor, throwing aside small twigs and needles before a successful peck was made. The bird was – at least to the eye of the observer – not in the least wary, instead walking around with attention focused on the forest floor. When the bird entered patches lit by sunlight, its mantle feathers flared up as if a beacon was lighted. Three days later, a fresh, incomplete plucking of a grey racing pigeon was found at the exact same spot, a Goshawk Accipiter gentilis being the most likely predator (the pigeon was plucked at various places, typical of Goshawks). It is likely that the pigeon, which carried a red 2017-ring and a chipring, had been part of the first overnight homing flight of the season, released at Limoges (France, some 565 km away) during the previous weekend. Shortly afterwards, a female Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs was recorded selecting feathers from the pigeon’s mantle for the lining of her nest.