Pigeons

I read recently that pigeons are flying too low to make shooting them much fun: there's no skill or joy in shooting a pigeon that is there, easy to kill. Which reminds me of a friend of mine who once hired a harpoon gun for underwater shooting; he dived into the sea and shot a fish which was there just staring at him. He felt so guilty and sorry for the fish that he never shot another.
Why don't these bird shooters train their guns on magpies instead then which, it is argued by one nature society, are a menace to small birds? Because they are protected, that's why.
I wonder if farmers obey these laws that protect these birds. Farmers I have known, and my second cousin was a farmer, have never hestitated to shoot crows, magpies and jays because they damage crops. They also have made a practice of shooting pigeons, wild pigeons I hasten to add. Not because they damage crops (though probably they do) but because they are nice to eat.
My father and I visited my second cousin farmer when I was a child. He had that morning shot a bunch (not sure about that being the collective noun) of wild pigeons. "There they were on a branch," he said. "About eight of them. Got out the old blunderbuss (a gun that shot a heap of lead shot in a beam of bullets) and let fly." And there they were on the table, cleaned and cooked.
It is the only time I have ever eaten pigeon with its dark brown and white meat but I can report that the meat was absolutely delicious, though you had to watch you didn't swallow the lead shot in them.
Maybe magpies would taste good too.