OH dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Let’s talk about pigeons. The ones unwise enough to have set up home on the Fisherton railway bridge.

Exactly two years ago this column reported a declaration of all-out war on the cooing colony by Salisbury City Council.

I remember listening with growing disbelief to a Guildhall debate in which the level of verbal aggression expressed towards these peaceable, unwitting creatures seemed quite disproportionate.

Providing comfy lofts where their food could be laced with contraceptives or their eggs quietly taken away and destroyed was, in my soft-hearted opinion, the most humane option under discussion.

But it didn’t happen. Having brooded on the problem for all this time, the solution the council preferred was to bang wire nets across the structure, preventing any birds from perching. The bill (pun intended) for taxpayers came to £16,000.

Guess what? Instead of poo plopping onto passing pedestrians, entire pigeons came fluttering down to expire from exhaustion on the pavement, due to the stress of being unable to get back to their nests or to find their young ones, which had been removed to what social services would call a ‘place of safety’.

The wonderful Creatures in Crisis (where would Salisbury be without them?) disapproved of the whole exercise but agreed to care for the little casualties.

Unsurprisingly, the adult birds that remain in the land of the living are still hanging about, wondering what’s happened to their home.

A stroll on Tuesday afternoon revealed disconsolate dozens of them peering down perplexedly from every nearby rooftop – Gullicks the florists, John’s barber shop, the Shah Jahan, the Cat & Fiddle and the residential block next door. Eventually, I suppose, they’ll find another place where, being sociable birds, they can hang out together. And the council will have shifted the problem elsewhere. Short of wholesale slaughter, that’s all it can do.

Anyone else remember the cartoon exploits of Dick Dastardly and his canine sidekick, Muttley? And that wacky theme tune, Stop the Pigeon?

The pair never did achieve their aim, did they? And before anyone tells me that pigeons are a health hazard, may I quote the Department of Health? It is “not aware” of them causing “any cases of human infections”.

n Another change of address for wildlife, of a happier kind, was reported to me this week by reader Maria Lafemina.

Since Wiltshire’s verge-cutting programme has been slashed due to No Money, wild flowers have been flourishing. And now bee enthusiast Maria has photographed an example of the rare andrena hattofiana on the verge near her home in Ditchampton.

This type of bee was listed in the late 1980s as in danger of extinction.

Found mainly on Salisbury Plain, it feeds principally on scabious flowers.

Which, of course, now have a chance to grow again alongside our roads.

They say Nature always finds a way … and I do hope that They, whoever they are, are right.

anneriddle36@gmail.com