WE were walking through the centre of Bournemouth on a shopping expedition when my wife suddenly grabbed my arm, squeezed it and pulled me tightly against her side.

"That's nice," I thought. "I've made the effort to come into town and trail round the stores behind her - and she knows that this is something I don't particularly enjoy - so she's pleased with me. Brownie points galore."

Wrong on all counts.

What had really happened was that she had spotted an approaching menace, in the shape of a feral pigeon. What I mistook for affection was, in fact, a fear response.

It's unfortunate, but she has a real phobia about birds. She likes the creatures, has a bird bath and table in the flower bed and hangs a container of nuts from the plum tree. She often consults her bird book to identify Little Brown Jobs, as keen birdwatchers call anything they can't put a label on immediately, and delights in watching out of the kitchen window as fledgling blackbirds blunder about the borders, learning how to find food while keeping an eye out for our cat.

But bring her into close proximity to anything with feathers and she's terrified. The smaller the wing beat, the worse it is. It's the random movement and the flapping noise that get her.

So Bournemouth town centre, where the pigeons seem to use the pedestrianised section of Old Christchurch Road as a flight-path for a landing in the Square, is a nightmare. If I'm not there to cling on to, she darts from shop doorway to shop doorway, and gets funny looks when she stamps her feet as she walks to shoo the birds away.

It's not much use me trying to reassure her by saying that the pigeons are only trying to get out of her way. That's because I once made the mistake of telling her how I was walking through the Lower Gardens one lunchtime when a pigeon swooped towards me from behind and actually landed on my shoulder. I felt like St Francis, but probably looked like Long John Silver.

I'm not an animal killer by nature, but I have some sympathy for the idea of pigeon culls, even if blasting them out of the sky does sound a little violent. The trouble with this solution, I understand, is that the pigeons simply multiply until they've re-established themselves at the previous level of occupancy. Either that, or word gets round that there are vacant window-sills in Bournemouth and the birds migrate into town from outlying areas.

If that's the case, it would be good news for a friend of ours who is plagued by a gang of pigeons which have got too pushy by half.

They have taken over the balcony of her first-floor flat, which leaves a right old mess all over the paintwork, they wake her up ridiculously early in the morning with their incessant cooing noises (which means they may be doves, but they all look the same to her and to me) and they show every sign of trying to take over her lounge as well if she leaves the door to the balcony open.

So she went out and bought herself a pump-action gun.

Not, I hasten to add in case anyone from the law should read this, of the 12-bore variety. This is a large, pump-action water pistol with extraordinary range and considerable power. She sits near the doorway with her plastic pistol pumped up and at the ready, just daring any bird to set its little pigeon toes over the threshold. This sounds like much more fun than watching telly.

She reported recently that the pigeon problem is now under control and added, with some glee, that she is such a good shot now that she was able to give one retreating bird an unexpected enema last week.