by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 12, 2021 | Bird Spike, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News
Keeping this in view, how do pigeons survive in the city?
Pigeons (Rock Doves) adapt well to cities because they find there habitat similar to the cliffs where they live in the wild. If we were prepared to capture and eat them (not recommended today for health reasons) their populations would be much smaller of course.
Subsequently, question is, where do pigeons die? This background means that, when sick or injured, pigeons instinctively retreat to dark, remote places – ventilation systems, attics, building ledges – hoping to remain out of reach and unnoticed by predators. The predators don’t see them, but neither do we: often when pigeons expire, they are in hiding.
Keeping this in consideration, how long can a pigeon live?
Life Expectancy: Varies greatly from 3-5 years through to 15 years dependent on many factors, including natural predation and human interference. Predation: The wild pigeon is predated upon, almost exclusively, by the peregrine falcon, a bird that is also found living and breeding in coastal regions.
Do pigeons fight to the death?
As The Tom says, pigeons will defend their nest to the death under these circumstances. In a confined space this can quickly lead to the eggs becoming broken, or even the squabs being trampled to death in the ensuing skirmish.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 12, 2021 | Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Predators
PLEASANTON — It turns out Homer’s odyssey ends in … Hayward.
The homing pigeon that walked into a Pleasanton bar on Memorial Day almost made it home from a race in Nevada — but didn’t quite get there. An injury or exhaustion landed the bird at the Y’all Come Back Saloon, where he surprised patrons with his brazen entrance into the neighborhood bar.
After an unsuccessful attempt to release the pigeon — he fluttered to the ground and didn’t go anywhere — Castro Valley resident Carol Batten tracked down a Medford, Ore., man whom she thought was the pigeon’s owner. And since Homer wasn’t going anywhere on his own, bar owner Maureen “Puff” Carpenson had lined up a ride to Oregon for the wayward pigeon.
But the day before the bird, christened Homer, was to leave for Oregon in an air-conditioned automobile, Batten and Carpenson learned the bird actually had been shipped to a new owner — a Hayward resident — last year.
Reese Bishop said he was surprised to hear from his friend, a pigeon breeder in Oregon, on Thursday night, asking if he had lost one of his birds. In fact, one of his pigeons did not make it back from the Lovelock, Nev., race over Memorial weekend.
He was even more surprised to learn that his pigeon was now famous as the bird who walked into a bar.
Bishop was expected to reunite with his bird late Friday. He laughed when he heard it had been dubbed Homer; since he owns 200 pigeons, it is impossible to name them all, he said.
Bishop has been racing pigeons for five years, and he says he has lost birds in the past.
“It happens,” he said. “Two years ago, I had a bird who was found in Los Angeles. He was supposed to be heading to my house from Nevada.”
After the first story appeared in MediaNews newspapers on Thursday, Carpenson said she received several phone calls from individuals warning her not to return the bird because it is considered useless to the owner.
“That is not true,” Bishop said. “We care about our birds. We put a lot of time and effort into them. There are a lot of feelings toward them.”
Larry Cook of the California State Racing Pigeon Organization noted that racing pigeons, depending on their breeding, can be worth anywhere from $500 to $1,000.
Cook, who has been racing pigeons for 29 years, said he has had pigeons get lost, then found and subsequently shipped back to his Exeter home.
For now, Homer the pigeon will be “put out to pasture” so he can recover, Bishop said.
After that, Bishop will decide whether to breed him or hand him over to a racer just starting out in the hobby.
As for that pigeon who turned up in Los Angeles a few years ago? He’s racing again.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosting / Vancouver Pigeon Control /Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / Pigeon Deterrent? Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest /Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons/ What to do about pigeons/ sparrows , Damage by Sparrows, How To Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests/ De-fence / Pigeon Nesting/ Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping/ woodpecker control/ Professional Bird Control Company/ Keep The Birds Away/ Birds/rats/ seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/ dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/ pidgeon control/flying rats/ pigeon Problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/ bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 12, 2021 | Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Canberra, Australia — A pigeon that Australia declared a biosecurity risk has received a reprieve after a U.S. bird organization declared its identifying leg band was fake.
The band suggested the bird found in a Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 was a racing pigeon that had left Oregon, 8,000 miles away, two months earlier.
On that basis, Australian authorities on Thursday said they considered the bird a disease risk and planned to kill it.
But Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said on Friday the band was fake.
The band number belongs to a blue bar pigeon in the United States and that is not the bird pictured in Australia, she said.
“The bird band in Australia is counterfeit and not traceable,” Roberts said. “It definitely has a home in Australia and not the U.S.”
“Somebody needs to look at that band and then understand that the bird is not from the U.S. They do not need to kill him,” she added.
Australia’s Agriculture Department, which is responsible for biosecurity, agreed that the pigeon dubbed Joe, after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, was wearing a “fraudulent copy” leg band.
“Following an investigation, the department has concluded that Joe the Pigeon is highly likely to be Australian and does not present a biosecurity risk,” it said in a statement.
The department said it will take no further action.
Acting Australian Prime Minister Michael McCormack had earlier said there would be no mercy if the pigeon was from the United States.
“If Joe has come in a way that has not met our strict biosecurity measures, then bad luck Joe, either fly home or face the consequences,” McCormack said.
Martin Foley, health minister for Victoria state, where Joe is living, had called for the federal government to spare the bird even if it posed a disease risk.
“I would urge the Commonwealth’s quarantine officials to show a little bit of compassion,” Foley said.
Andy Meddick, a Victorian lawmaker for the minor Animal Justice Party, called for a “pigeon pardon for Joe.”
“Should the federal government allow Joe to live, I am happy to seek assurances that he is not a flight risk,” Meddick said.
Melbourne resident Kevin Celli-Bird, who found the emaciated bird in his backyard, was surprised by the change of nationality but pleased that the bird he named Joe would not be destroyed.
“I thought this is just a feel-good story and now you guys want to put this pigeon away and I thought it’s not on, you know, you can’t do that, there has got to be other options,” Celli-Bird said of the threat to euthanize.
Celli-Bird had contacted the American Racing Pigeon Union to find the bird’s owner based on the number on the leg band. The bands have both a number and a symbol, but Celli-Bird didn’t remember the symbol and said he can no longer catch the bird since it has recovered from its initial weakness.
The bird with the genuine leg band had disappeared from a 350-mile race in Oregon on Oct. 29, Crooked River Challenge owner Lucas Cramer said.
That bird did not have a racing record that would make it valuable enough to steal its identity, he said.
“That bird didn’t finish the race series, it didn’t make any money and so its worthless, really,” Cramer said.
Counterfeiting bird bands is “happening more and more,” Roberts said. “People coming into the hobby unknowingly buy that.”
Pigeon racing has seen a resurgence in popularity, and some birds have become quite valuable. A Chinese pigeon racing fan put down a record price of $1.9 million in November for a Belgian-bred pigeon.
Cramer said it was possible a pigeon could cross the Pacific on a ship from Oregon to Australia.
“In reality, it could potentially happen, but this isn’t the same pigeon. It’s not even a racing pigeon,” Cramer said.
The bird spends every day in the backyard, sometimes with a native dove on a pergola.
“I might have to change him to Aussie Joe, but he’s just the same pigeon,” Celli-Bird said.
Lars Scott, a carer at Pigeon Rescue Melbourne, a bird welfare group, said pigeons with American leg bans were not uncommon around the city. A number of Melbourne breeders bought them online and used them for their own record keeping, Scott said.
Australian quarantine authorities are notoriously strict. In 2015, the government threatened to euthanize two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, after they were smuggled into the country by Hollywood star Johnny Depp and his now-ex-wife Amber Heard.
Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosting / Vancouver Pigeon Control /Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / Pigeon Deterrent? Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest /Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons/ What to do about pigeons/ sparrows , Damage by Sparrows, How To Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests/ De-fence / Pigeon Nesting/ Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping/ woodpecker control/ Professional Bird Control Company/ Keep The Birds Away/ Birds/rats/ seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/ dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/ pidgeon control/flying rats/ pigeon Problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/ bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 12, 2021 | Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Columbidae, Doves
ST. PAUL, Minn.–Pounded and strained by heavy traffic and weakened by missing bolts and cracking steel, the failed interstate bridge over the Mississippi River also faced a less obvious enemy: Birds, specifically pigeons.
Inspectors began documenting the build-up of pigeon dung on the span near downtown Minneapolis two decades ago.
Experts say the corrosive guano deposited all over the bridge’s framework helped the steel beams rust faster.
Although investigators have yet to identify the cause of the bridge’s Aug. 1 collapse, which killed at least 13 people and injured about 100, the pigeon problem is one of many factors that dogged the structure.
“There is a coating of pigeon dung on steel with nest and heavy build-up on the inside hollow box sections,” inspectors wrote in a 1987-1989 report.
In 1996, screens were installed over openings in the bridge’s beams to keep pigeons from nesting there, but that didn’t prevent the build-up of droppings elsewhere.
Pigeon droppings contain ammonia and acids, said chemist Neal Langerman, of the American Chemical Society. If the dung isn’t washed away, it dries out and turns into a concentrated salt. When water gets in and combines with the salt and ammonia, it creates small electrochemical reactions that rust the steel underneath.
“Every time you get a little bit of moisture there, you wind up having a little bit of electrochemistry occurring and you wind up with corrosion,” said Langerman. “Over a long term, it might in fact cause structural weaknesses.”
Langerman emphasized that he wasn’t saying absolutely that pigeon dung factored into the collapse of the bridge, but the problem is familiar to bridge inspectors everywhere.
The Colorado Department of Transportation spent so much time cleaning pigeon manure off bridges that it’s researching new ways to keep the birds away from its spans.
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosting / Vancouver Pigeon Control /Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / Pigeon Deterrent? Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest /Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons/ What to do about pigeons/ sparrows , Damage by Sparrows, How To Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests/ De-fence / Pigeon Nesting/ Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping/ woodpecker control/ Professional Bird Control Company/ Keep The Birds Away/ Birds/rats/ seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/ dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/ pidgeon control/flying rats/ pigeon Problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/ bird guard
by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 5, 2021 | MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators
Heavily armed shock troops took to the streets of Downtown, police officers barked at pedestrians to take cover and Pittsburgh’s mayor donned a bulletproof vest yesterday afternoon as reports of a sniper in the heart of the business district triggered a massive police response and paralyzed both commerce and traffic.
Several nervous callers to 911 had described a man with a bushy beard carrying a rifle with a scope and pointing it out the windows of a building in the 500 block of Penn Avenue.
Police closed off streets. Inbound lanes of the Fort Pitt Bridge were closed to traffic, as were ramps leading to Downtown from the Fort Duquesne Bridge. A Port Authority Police officer armed with an AR-15 rifle stood guard at Penn Avenue and Stanwix Street.
It was a surreal incident, a surreal response and, fittingly, a surreal ending.
There was no sniper after all, only a maintenance man at the Pittsburgh Allegheny County Thermal plant shooting at pigeons inside the 10-story facility with a pellet rifle.
Police declined to identify the man. But PACT president Robert Fazio said he was Richard Wills, an “excellent” longtime employee who has worked single-handedly for several years to eradicate the plant’s pigeon problem after poison and plastic owls proved unsuccessful. PACT provides steam heat for buildings throughout Downtown.
When police discovered that tidbit of information, they also learned another. Despite the rapid response and overwhelming police presence, the worker, a Fayette County resident, had quietly left, possibly oblivious to the uproar he had caused.
Mr. Wills could not be reached for comment last night.
Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin said it was unlikely the man would be arrested. The only charge likely to stem from the incident could be a citation if it were determined he fired the gun illegally inside the city limits, Ms. Ewin said.
Chief Dominic J. Costa, who was Downtown along with Mayor Bob O’Connor and other top local officials, said merely carrying a pellet rifle Downtown might not be against the law. However, he added, it flew in the face of common sense.
“Look at the alarm he caused. Look at all the inconvenience he caused,” Chief Costa said.
Until police determined roughly two hours into the incident that there was no imminent danger, they took no chances.
The event began around 1:05 p.m., apparently after a witness saw a man with a rifle inside a building on Penn Avenue. Then a police dispatcher broadcast information about a gunman with a rifle and a scope on the fourth floor of a building at Penn and Cecil Way, an alley running from Penn to Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Another dispatch had the man wearing some type of light strapped to his shoulder.
Officers shut Penn Avenue, Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue from Stanwix to Sixth streets and posted officers at the intersections.
“Folks, you need to either move to the right or the left,” bellowed one motorcycle officer to a group of pedestrians on Stanwix Street. “This guy has a high-powered rifle.”
About 100 Highmark Life and Casualty employees were told to keep clear of the windows of their floor in 515 Penn Ave., which faced the building at 525 Penn Ave., where the incident was taking place.
They remained in the building for two hours, tracking the unfolding events on the Internet, television and phone calls from the outside, said staffer Carol Hunter.
The shutdown paralyzed some businesses both inside and outside the taped-off police perimeter. One exception was the Sixth Penn bistro, where the five-person kitchen crew remained busy hustling out orders of meatloaf, crabcake and Reuben sandwiches all afternoon.
“Customers were enjoying hanging out,” said fry cook Chris Eggleton, 32. “People took it as an extended lunch at the expense of a sniper.”
At the Fifth Avenue Beanery coffee shop, customers presumably were “just sitting at the tables or walking back and forth, talking on their cell phones,” said Manager Mary Ann Keating. “People were more frustrated about what was going on. They wanted out and they weren’t allowed out.”
For a time, police had trouble locating the right building. Adding to the confusion were later dispatches that the suspect might be walking away carrying a duffel bag or a backpack.
Eventually, police focused on the PACT complex, two buildings along Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Cecil Way that share a common wall.
As surveillance continued, police swarmed Downtown in droves. Unmarked cars pulled up, one after the other, as members of the Special Emergency Response Team exited, donned body armor and unloaded heavy weapons. Snipers took up positions.
A state police helicopter whirred overhead. The bomb squad arrived. Allegheny County Sheriff Peter R. DeFazio and Chief Executive Dan Onorato showed up.
And Mr. O’Connor, whose wife, Judy, was at work in the hot zone, ran across Penn Avenue shielded by his bodyguard, Officer Joseph Ryczaj, to check on her.
Authorities established a command post in the lobby of Fifth Avenue Place, where a police robot rolled over the lobby floor.
“It’s kind of crazy,” said Tara Bingaman, 28, of North Huntingdon, a student at Point Park University who wandered over to Stanwix Street to witness the hubbub.
Around 2:20 p.m., SERT officers marched out of Fifth Avenue Place. Mr. O’Connor, whose white hair stood in contrast to the officers’ black outfits, stood at the end of their line. The officers made their way around the corner onto Penn and down Cecil Way.
Eventually, they entered the PACT building shortly before 3 p.m. and found a foreman who told them the description of the man with a gun matched that of an employee who shoots pigeons with a pellet rifle and a scope.
Mr. Fazio said Mr. Wills used his own pellet rifle — which he stores at the plant — to clear out pigeons who roost in the building’s rafters and rain droppings down on the machinery.
“We do have an internal building pigeon problem. The pigeons come into our building and from time to time one of our employees has used a pellet rifle to get rid of pigeons inside our building only,” Mr. Fazio said.
Patrons at Caffe Amante, a restaurant on the second floor of Fifth Avenue Place, had been finishing lunches or heading back to work when police poured into the area and ordered the building shut down. So they headed back to the restaurant, which overlooks Penn Avenue and Stanwix Street, to cluster around the television and watch news reports about the situation unfolding on the streets around them.
“It was confusing and more than a little aggravating,” manager Debbie Doucette said. “Now that it turns out to be a pellet gun, I’m really aggravated. We were all held up for two hours for pigeons and pellet guns.”
Source
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosting / Vancouver Pigeon Control /Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / Pigeon Deterrent? Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest /Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons/ What to do about pigeons/ sparrows , Damage by Sparrows, How To Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests/ De-fence / Pigeon Nesting/ Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping/ woodpecker control/ Professional Bird Control Company/ Keep The Birds Away/ Birds/rats/ seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/ dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/ pidgeon control/flying rats/ pigeon Problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/ bird guard
