Wood Pigeons Heart London Gardens

The common wood pigeon, that dandyish, dapper-feathered friend of the much-loathed feral variety (aka flyingus rattingus), is London's most common garden bird, according to statistics from the RSPB. The Society's Big Garden Birdwatch, on the last weekend of January, saw half a million people record 280,000 birds and 70 different species frolicking around their begonias. As well as the wood pigeon, house sparrows are also on the rise, with numbers increasing slightly after many years of decline. In a development that may reflect the abundance of Columba palumbus in our city, new restaurant Bistrot Bruno Loubet serves up (with apologies to Brian) a particularly tasty pigeon.