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I was in Joburg over the weekend with an afternoon free, so I drove an hour out of town towards Bloem, to shoot a few pigeon and doves.





There are a number of townships on the way that you drive past.






This one – after the Grasmere Plaza Toll – reminds me of the old DDR transit road between West Germany and West Berlin before ‘The Wall’ came down, with a wall running the length of the township. I wonder if it is to keep people in or keep people out ?





I arrived and parked the Landy by the gum trees – every year in winter the bushes and trees are hacked down for winter firewood by the residents of the nearby township. I have known the gum tree stump on the right for 10 years now and watch it grow in spring and summer only to get hacked down again every winter!









A feed lot with 30.000 cattle draws in the pigeon and dove like a magnet. Although as the melies / corn had recently been harvested off the surrounding fields a lot of pigeon were on the stubbles. Nevertheless I shot rockies and Cape Laughing Dove, a few Collared Dove and a Feral pigeon (sorry about the shadow on the picture).















I managed a bag of 45 odd birds for 3 boxes of 28 g Eleys before calling it a day. Note this picture is not the whole bag.






James, a kid from the township picked the birds for me in between playing finger puppets with pigeon heads! The ‘bag’ was happily taken by the kids that gathered from the township.







An enjoyable afternoons, easy wingshooting in South Africa!

Looks like a lot of fun!

Now my friend Rudy van der Merwe from Jburg must take me to shoot a few birds ,im mailing him just now .

I will be doing this next weekend - 20th Sept. My first trip to Africa.