Country diary: the wood pigeons are on the move

Airedale, West Yorkshire A lone wood pigeon in a tree may look portly rather than predatory, but in the air even other birds can mistake it for a hawkA grey silhouette against a linen-white November sky: pointed wings, thick torso, purposeful flight. My first instinct says hawk – maybe a peregrine, even (I saw one over the river, among the Victorian chimneys of the Lower Aire, earlier in the week). But then mind and eye resolve the image and I see the bird for what it is: a wood pigeon, so