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As every hunter know, hot and weat favour bacterial growth and with it meat decomposition, thus field dressing is the only way to stop this process. But for bird game it results impractical to do it immediately after killing, unless you are hunting a pigeon or two for dinner.

Then it's mandatory to find a middle point where field dressing is done as soon as possible interrupting as few as possible hunting itself.

To do so there are at least two options:

- Leave a field dressing team on a fixed spot working with killed birds while the hunting team continues shooting

- Proceed with field dressing after a certain number of kills. In example, each 10 birds downs the hunting stops for field dressing and resumes as soon as the last bird is completely processed

Which one is the best and how to implement it will depend of personal hunters' preference, number of the hunting team members, area where you are hunting and available resources.

In fact, those living on areas with severe winter and snow probably will migrate towards warmer areas but in areas where conditions are not so hard and there's still some evergreen plants, pigeons will stay all along the winter but that doesn't mean it will be easier to catch them ... at least if you don't know how to stalk pigeons during winter.

First thing to do is scouting looking for ivy and even holly if you are hunting on an area where this small tree grows. Ivy provides a good source of berries all along the winter while holly or any other evergreen foliage tree provides cover, so when scouting, you need to identify cover and feeding places.

Once you have done it, try to find out which trees are the most popular among pigeons on the area; try to see how many birds descend on a particular tree along a given period o time and look how long they stay.

After a relatively short time you will be able to identify several trees where pigeons are feeding, especially early in the morning. Then it's time to find proper cover for you in order to wait for pigeons and shot down them, once at a time.

Usually it's not necessary a complex piece of camo, in fact just a camo net is enough to keep you out of sight, moreover, natural foliage on the area or natural covers as fallen trees might be enough to keep you out of sight.

It's not a secret that after a firearm blast every animal on the surroundings will be alert! Moreover, on high hunting pressure areas such blast will be associated by animals with human presence, so they don't need to see or hear you to know there's a hunter out there once the blast occurs, so every living creature on the area with movement capability will try to run away from there once you shoot!

And with small games this will be a problem because if you miss, probably there will not another chance. On this regard airguns have an edge because they produce almost no noise and, the most important, probably animals on the area won't associate that sound with humans, so they probably will be alert and still for a while just to retake their usual behavior some seconds after.

That will give you another chance in case you miss or, if you are lucky enough, to shoot down a second game if available; something that can be rarely achieved with firearms because all secondary targets on the area will run away as soon as you pull the trigger.

On this regard it will necessary to avoid all artificial scents on your laundry and body care products, in fact is your clothes are a little dirt from previous scout it would be a good idea to use the as it instead of washing them, but if you wash your clothes, be sure to use a odorless product.

Same applies for personal body products. Shampoo and soap must be odor free, deodorants with no fragrance are allowed but personal scents are prohibited, including hair gels, aftershave and even shaving foam.

The aim is to hit the bushes with your natural body odor, nothing else, that way it will be easier to blend on environment scents.

But it's not a matter of what products you use but also what you eat. Some feed have intense, persisting odors lasting for days; in fact some spiced feed can change your body odor because some of their odor molecules can reach your sweat, so avoiding such edibles is mandatory.

Well, it's a sort of "half" ghillie suit covering only your head, neck, thorax and arms. The camo principle is the same of a ghillie suit but covering only exposed body areas.

When it may be used a ghillie hood, this is more convenient than a full ghillie suit because it's lighter, easier to carry on and more comfortable, especially on hot weather, when a full ghillie suit may lead to hunter's overheating.

Ghillie hoods are a great choice for waterfowl hunting as well for those hunting behind fallen trees or using rocks and other terrain accidents as hiding place.

The basics behind a ghillie hood are the same of a ghillie suit. It must blend with the environment using color like patterns; local species must be included on the hood in order to render it more natural and human silhouette must be broken by the hood.