by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Spike, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
The people of Toronto are fed up with pigeons. The birds crowd around subway stations, overload balconies with poop, and build their flammable nests in hazardous places. The city has tried trapping and relocating them, scaring them away with falcons, and even debated imposing a feeding ban. Nothing has worked.
The latest tactic? Giving the birds food laced with birth control.
Toronto is far from the only city dealing with pigeon problems. Adaptable and prolific, Rock Pigeons are extremely common—and often despised. City health and sanitation departments caution that pigeon droppings can damage buildings and historic landmarks, and their nests can cause fires on train tracks. This has prompted culling, trapping, or poisoning programs, but pigeon numbers keep bouncing back, pushing some civic leaders to seek more creative solutions.
Now Toronto is placing its bet on a form of avian birth control called nicarbazin. Nearly a year ago, the animal control department deployed four feeders around the city that automatically dispense nicarbazin-infused wheat pellets at a set time each day. The pilot program aims to reduce the metropolitan pigeon population by 50 percent annually—and results are set for release later this summer.
Nicarbazin was originally developed in the 1950s to treat a poultry disease called coccidiosis. But the drug came with a curious side effect: It made hens lay infertile eggs. The compound pokes holes in the membrane around the yolk, and so the embryo can’t develop, says Christi Yoder, a former wildlife biologist who helped conduct early research on the contraceptive capabilities of nicarbazin in the early 2000s. The drug was first tested in the laboratory with chickens and domestic Mallards, and then later in the field on nuisance Canada Geese, both scenarios where nicarbazin performed quite well, Yoder says.
For pigeons, however, the results have been mixed. The drug has had some success, especially with smaller pigeon populations confined to areas like industrial lots or small towns. But the right conditions need to align for nicarbazin to do its job. Pigeons can be conditioned to return to the same places at the same time each day, but ensuring that the birds eat the necessary dose isn’t always guaranteed, especially when other food is available. And if a bird stops consuming the drug for a few days, its fertility will return to normal. “You gotta be taking this stuff consistently for it to work,” says Erick Wolf, CEO of Innolytics, LLC, which sells nicarbazin under the brand name OvoControl, including for Toronto’s pilot.
If a bird stops consuming the drug for a few days, its fertility will return to normal.
That fickleness makes nicarbazin especially challenging to use effectively in cities. A 2022 study in Barcelona found that, while the drug reduced some pigeon colonies by about 55 percent over 3 years, other colonies appeared unaffected. This is likely because of humans. In areas where people feed pigeons, the birds may not always eat the birth-control bait, says Carlos González-Crespo, the lead author of the paper who is currently a researcher at University of California Davis. A separate study on nicarbazin in Barcelona also found that the drug had little effect on the overall population of pigeons across the city, likely because of these confounding human factors.
Giving pigeons birth control also seems to merely stabilize populations rather than decrease them, says Nadia Xenakis, a biologist at BC SPCA who led a year-long study in 2019 on a pilot program in Vancouver. That’s because contraception impacts fertility but not survival. A pigeon’s typical lifespan is two to seven years, so bringing down the numbers solely using nicarbazin can be a waiting game, she says. And for the duration, feeders must be monitored to make sure that pigeons are eating enough for a proper dose and cleaned regularly so they don’t attract rats and other pests. (Nicarbazin poses little risk to those animals, Wolf says, because of its specific effect on bird eggs and its daily dosage requirement.)
Flock of Pigeons crowded on the floor outdoor landscape close up.
All of which raises the question: With its many uncertainties, is birth control the most effective way to reduce urban pigeon populations? The answer, experts agree, is no; stopping people from feeding the birds would likely have a bigger impact. “Many studies for urban pigeons are like, if you’re just reducing the food available to them, their populations will reduce by 50 percent before you even try contraceptives,” says Page Klug, a U.S. Department of Agriculture biologist who led a recent review paper on avian contraceptives.
The problem is that human behavior is difficult to manage. González-Crespo recalls how challenging it was to stop city residents from feeding pigeons for his study, since they thought that they were doing a good deed. In reality, feeding the birds can harm them, he says, by leading to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.
Indeed, it was opposition to a feeding ban that ultimately led Toronto to try the approach the press has dubbed “planned pigeonhood.” Although the program’s impact won’t be clear until the summer, the city recently added a fifth birth control dispenser in a new location. Officials are also encouraging residents to seal off food sources and potential nesting nooks. Pigeon problems can’t be solved with contraceptives alone, González-Crespo says. “You cannot expect wonders from doing just one thing.”
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Netting
It started when the exclusive University Club had its feathers ruffled. It wanted to drape its storied building in netting, to protect it from pigeon poo, which eats away at stone and metal. But the Landmarks Commission said it would have to wait for approval, as it would be a “visible change” to the landmarked Italian Renaissance building’s façade. As if the crap wasn’t a “visible change” enough.
Meanwhile, over on East 93rd Street, there was a scuffle involving longtime pigeon activist Anna Dove and her neighbor, who snatched away her bag of seed after he saw her feeding the pigeons on the sidewalk. The police were summoned.
“It’s disgusting,” said her nemesis, retired teacher Arthur Schwartz. “She’s feeding the rats.”
And with the live pigeon-shooting state championships in Pennsylvania coming up, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be an increase in demand of pigeon-poaching — New York City is a favorite spot for trapping them and transporting them to be used as live targets. The animal-rights activists will be out with their cameras and signs to stop them.
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No matter which side you’re on, one things for certain — by the end, things are going to get a little birdbrained.
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“It’s not the pigeons that are the problem, it’s the number of them,” says Andrew D. Blechman, author of “Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird.” “They’re gentle creatures. The problem is that they get in our face, just like we get in each other’s faces.”
No one one’s quite sure of how many pigeons are in New York City. One adage is “one pigeon per person,” which would put their numbers at about 7 million. They each produce about 25 pounds of waste per year.
Pigeons love cities because of the many ledges, windowsills, eaves and rooftops available for them to roost in, which mimics their natural habitat of high cliffs. Pigeon pairings are monogamous, often mating for life, and both parents raise the babies — called squab — for a time, sitting on the eggs in shifts.
The pigeon includes about 298 species of bird, but the Rock Dove is the most common to the New York area, according to the Parks Department. The grey, bobbing-headed birds usually have purple-green iridescence around the neck area. They’re the scruffiest members of the dove family — although “dove” usually connotes the pure white symbols of peace, not the pizza scavengers of city streets. (Just say they’ve been pigeonholed.)
“If they were white,” Blechman says, “people would love them.”
Blame the French for our pigeon problems. The little pluckers first arrived in the early 1600s with French settlers who used them for meat. They were easy to raise — they could be kept in a barn, where they’d perch on the rafters, and young pigeons served as a good source of protein.
But they soon escaped their confines and went feral.
City life agreed with them and allowed them to flourish — and in some cases, over-flourish. Their natural predators, like falcons and hawks, aren’t found here in great numbers.
Courtney Humphries, author of “Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan . . . And the World,” concedes that pigeon are pilloried partly because of their “persistence. They nest on the buildings we consider our territory, and they don’t like to be moved.”
The average city pigeon has a lifespan of three to five years. With all the food scattered throughout the garbage cans and sidewalks — plus well-meaning human feeders — they spend less time looking for grub, which leaves more time for mating.
“The biggest problem is the people who overfeed them,” says Blechman. “Every city has about a dozen of them, and they’re the ones who cause the [overpopulation] problem.”
He suggests that if you want to feed the birds, hand out just a teaspoon full of birdseed for a flock. “It’s just enough to give them a little extra energy while they’re out trying to find their own food.”
“If nobody fed pigeons, I think things would look a lot different,” agrees Humphries, who says that human feeders end up creating dense flocks. “A lot of the problem with pigeons comes from people.”
If you can’t freeze the hearts of little old ladies, though, you could try eating them (the pigeons, that is). Squab — baby pigeons that haven’t flown yet — is on the menu at many restaurants around the city, particularly French. They’re “basically the milk-fed veal of the sky,” says Blechman — tender, mostly dark meat, and one of the only poultry that can be eaten rare. (Pigeons produce their own milk-like substance, which they feed to their young by regurgitation.)
Pigeon pot pie was a huge colonial favorite. Today, try the Squab and Foie Croustillant at the Modern, Danny Meyer’s restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art.
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Unless the appetite for squab skyrockets, New York’s options are few. Avicide — poisoning birds — was made illegal in 2000, when the state Legislature passed a bill outlawing the use of “flock dispersal agents” like Avitrol in cities with more than 1 million people.
Before that, property managers regularly hired pest control services to dole out Avatrol to flocks of pigeons.
“In theory, you would mix it with feed, and when one pigeon ate some of the treated food, they would begin to suffer from neurological toxicity,” explained Stephanie Boyles, wildlife expert at the Humane Society of the United States. “When their flockmates saw them suffering, it would prompt them to leave the area.”
In practice, however, overdosing often led to large numbers of birds convulsing and writhing in pain on the street before their deaths. Welcome to New York!
The last major flare-up between pigeons and people was in 2007, when City Councilman Simcha Felder released a report plaintively titled, “Curbing the Pigeon Conundrum.”
Claiming that their droppings carried a host of diseases like histoplasmosis, he proposed a $1,000 fine to anyone feeding them, as well as curbing their numbers through birth control (a measure that cities like Los Angeles have adopted, although some argue that it’s unsustainable), and appointing a city “Pigeon Czar” to oversee other pigeon-control issues.
The NYC Department of of Health and Mental Hygiene maintains that contact with their droppings only poses a small health risk, and that “routine cleaning of droppings (e.g. from windowsills) does not pose a serious health risk to most people,” although disposable gloves are a good idea.
The Humane Society came out against the anti-feeding fine because they weren’t sure it would actually make a difference in reducing flocks, said Boyles. “We still suggest working with communities to create places where pigeons are welcome, and discouraging them where they’re not.”
While Felder’s bill didn’t fly, it was only one of many efforts to keep pigeons clipped.
In 2006, pigeon loitering was so dense near the Army Recruitment Center in Times Square, speakers were set up to broadcast sounds of falcons and pigeons being attacked, in hopes of scaring them away. In 2003, they had so overwhelmed Bryant Park that the operators invited a falconer and his hawk to the park for a week to scare away (not eat) the pigeons.
In 2007, the MTA installed Bird-B-Gone on some of its elevated stations along the 7 line, as well as others. The electronic system zapped birds that got too close.
In the ’80s, plastic owls were a big seller. Today, a slightly more high-tech version, called the RoboHawk, moves its head, wings, and makes what its creators hope are pigeon-threatening sounds.
Every so often, a politician considers reviving an overall anti-feeding bill, since, for now, it’s only illegal in city parks where signs are posted (the fine is usually $50).
Some cling to the hope that the city will come to its senses and declare war. Because they’re a non-native species, pigeons are not protected by either the Federal Migratory Birds Act or New York state laws. Can anyone say hunting season?
It’s got to be done mafia-style, though. Culling is only a temporary solution — as with most wild birds, quick breeding will put their numbers back to pre-cull figures within weeks, according to Pigeon Control Advisory Service.
*
But spare a thought, pigeon haters, for your majestic foe. Pigeons have more qualities than you think.
Although city birds aren’t particularly active, pigeons are built to be athletes — a trained bird can fly up to 60 miles per hour, and they can stay in the air for 500 miles. They’re meant for flying long distances, and have “homing” instincts, which means they will naturally find their way back.
This talent is why they were literally drafted into the United States Army Pigeon Service.
A million served in both world wars, where they delivered messages across enemy lines and saved thousands of soldiers’ lives. One pigeon, Cher Ami, won a French medal for his bravery for flying through gunfire, finally delivering the message dangling from what was left of his foot. He’s now stuffed and in the Smithsonian.
The army’s Pigeon Breeding and Training Center was based at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and opened in 1917. Many of its “Pigeoneers” were “basically just boys out of Brooklyn, and they’d just bring their best birds,” Humphries says. (The training center was closed in 1957 when the Army stopped using them as messengers.)
Keeping pigeons on rooftops — and racing them — used to be much more popular. Who can forget Marlon Brando’s character in the 1954 film “On the Waterfront” shouting up to his friend Joey, “I got one of your birds!” right before Joey “accidentally” falls off the roof?
The city is full of equally vocal bird-lovers.
“They animate our lives,” argues Blechman, who says that despite writing a book on pigeons, he is not a “bird person,” and admits to having eaten them before. He’s come around, though. “You look out the window and you can have a pigeon land on your windowsill, and the same one will come back every day, and at the same time.
“What would the lonely, the unemployed, and the elderly do every day if it weren’t for pigeons?”
The Internet is atwitter with kooky pigeon fans. There’s a pigeon appreciation society on Facebook. On photo-sharing site Flickr, there’s a group called The Global Pigeon Art Appreciation Society.
“You are not alone,” the site reads. “Many artists have been inspired by pigeons.”
There is also a city listserv called “New York Pigeon People,” where members discuss how to rescue birds and share pigeon news.
You can eat them, race them, breed them, feed them, but you can’t escape them, whether you consider them the most misunderstood creatures of the flying community or the world’s worst bird. As Blechman put it, “We’re just going to have to learn to co-exist.”
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Netting
April 23 – In a messy but unsuccessful war against pigeons on city buildings, Denver has tried highfrequency sirens, electrified toe strips and an anti-perching product called Hot Foot. But now city officials think they finally have found a weapon that works: hallucinogenic chemicals.
For the past year, the city has been feeding pigeons corn laced with a substance called Avitrol, which sends birds into convulsions, sometimes fatal, that scare away the rest of the flock.
With so many pigeons on bad trips, city workers say it’s the first time in memory that people can walk without fear of plops from the ledges, windowsills and outcroppings of the ornate City and County Building and Greek Theater.
The acidity in pigeon droppings had become such a potent problem that the city is spending $100,000 this summer to power-wash bird scat from buildings around Civic Center.
“It got to the point where you felt like you needed ski goggles to look up at the City and County Building,” said John Hall, manager of public office buildings for Denver. “Pigeons are urban vermin.”
Though the same Avitrol chemical also is being used against pigeons at Coors Field, St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral and Rose Medical Center, not everyone is convinced it’s the No. 1 solution to the No. 2 problem.
Just a few blocks across Civic Center, state maintenance workers worry that Denver Mayor Wellington Webb merely is scattering pigeons from his building to do their business on the state Capitol.
And animal-rights activists are aghast.
“It takes 40 pigeons pooping all day in one place to equal what a dog leaves on my lawn in one drop,” said Catherine Hurlbutt, 87, who has rescued and nurtured hundreds of injured birds at her south Denver home. “You’re not supposed to say a bad word about dogs, but people think it’s OK to poison pigeons.”
When New York City residents started using Avitrol on pigeons, Grace Slick, the famed Jefferson Airplane singer of the ’60s drug anthem “White Rabbit,” protested to Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a letter.
“I have considerable experience on the subject of mind-altering drugs, and I can tell you that Avitrol is not your run-of-the-mill hallucinogen,” Slick wrote. “It causes violent shaking, trembling, thirst, nausea, convulsions, disorientation and a slow death. Wow, talk about a bad trip!”
Last year, the New York State Assembly passed a bill allowing cities to ban Avitrol, but Gov. George Pataki, heeding a request from Giuliani, vetoed the bill.
All the flap is over a 1-pound bird that was native to Europe but brought to North America in the 1600s.
Supporters call them rock doves, which mate for life and feed milk to their young, and note that their homing ancestors helped in World War II by transporting spy messages. Detractors liken them to rats and cockroaches that carry diseases and dive-bomb passers-by with fecal glop.
Denver has struggled for decades to keep Downtown pigeons under control. When workers put spikes on building ledges to keep pigeons from roosting, the birds simply built nests atop them and enjoyed air-cooled nests in the summer. When workers tried a chemical spread called Hot Foot, birds built new nests and enjoyed warmer roosts for the winter.
When world leaders visited Denver for the Summit of the Eight in 1997, city workers installed electrified wires atop ledges favored by pigeons at Civic Center’s outdoor Greek Theater. The wires suffered from frequent short-circuits.
High-frequency radio speakers were supposed to drive the pigeons batty, but the birds ended up perching atop them anyway.
City officials said their war against pigeons seemed lost – until Denver hired the Pigeon Man.
The latest owner of a 47-year-old family business called Bird Control, Doug Stewart said Avitrol is one of his most effective tools against pigeons. When he started working for Denver a year ago, the City and County Building was home to hundreds of pigeons.
But with a $250-a-month city contract, Stewart started sprinkling Avitrol-laced corn on the roof of city hall. Recently, Stewart scrambled across the roof of the four-story building with his monthly dosage of bait in his backpack.
While the rooftop view of the Rocky Mountains to the west and the state Capitol to the east was magnificent, Stewart was most proud of something he didn’t see.
There were few birds, or fresh droppings, anywhere.
So he laid down a few small piles of Avitrol-laced corn, which costs him $50 a pound, and talked about a job that has taken him across the rooftops of the city, from Lakeside Mall to the steeple at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral – and some truly disgusting abandoned apartment buildings in-between.
“I get asked all the time: Am I killing pigeons?” Stewart said. “There’s no way in the world I want any dead pigeons. I want to keep them fat, happy and on the move. It’s good for my business.” According to the government-approved warning label, Avitrol is a “poison with flock-alarming properties, used for the control of feral pigeons in, on, or in the area of structures, feeding, nesting, loafing and roosting sites, in such a way that a part of the flock may react and frighten the rest away. Birds that react and alarm a flock usually die.”
Scientific studies show the chemical temporarily alters brain waves and throws the bird into spasms and convulsions. When an Ontario, Canada, environmental official banned the use of non-humane vertebrate pesticides in 1975, a team of University of Ottawa researchers concluded that Avitrol “appears to be humane based on scientific evidence.”
“Upon eating the active ingredient of Avitrol in a corncob base, the birds begin to flap wings, vocalize and convulse,” said the study led by pathologist Henry Roswell.
“Other birds seeing this activity in their colleagues become alarmed and fly away to another area.” Critics of the use of bird repellants such as Avitrol claim that their use merely shifts birds from one area to another.
Pigeon on a roof with solar panels with pigeon spikes to repel pigeons, Darmstadt, Germany
“Avitrol is not intended to kill birds. However, some do die, although the numbers are minimal in comparison to the hundreds that make up the flock,” Roswell said.
Death-rate estimates range from 1 percent to 20 percent of pigeons consuming Avitrol.
Meanwhile, workers at the Colorado Capitol wonder whether the city is dropping its pigeon problem on the state. In the past year, state workers have installed five special anti-pigeon Plexiglas barriers – at a cost of $300 each – on ledges above the Capitol’s west steps. When told Denver has been using a chemical that may be moving city birds to the state Capitol, state central services director Rick Malinowski said, “Thanks a lot! We may have to retaliate.”
City workers fear the consequences. At the city’s Greek Theater, maintenance worker Ray Martinez set down his coffee cup one morning on an outdoor step before walking inside an office.
When he returned to his coffee cup a few minutes later, he saw something that jolted him awake.
“I was ready to take a sip and I looked down and thought, “Hey, what’s going on here? I take my coffee black!’
” Martinez said. “I was so mad I threw my cup at that bird.”
by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Netting
AINESVILLE, Fla. — A Florida Museum of Natural History gallery exhibit opening Sept. 1 illustrates how human actions can lead to the extinction of a species—even those considered common just a century ago.
“A Shadow Over the Earth: The Life and Death of the Passenger Pigeon” marks the 100-year anniversary of the bird’s extinction, and features illustrations, artwork and poetry from famed naturalists who documented the pigeon’s biology and its decline. Visitors may also learn about related Florida Museum research and view a well-preserved pair of Passenger Pigeons mounted in the 1890s.
Prior to its extinction 100 years ago, the Passenger Pigeon was one of the most abundant birds in the world, with population estimates ranging from 3 billion to 5 billion.
“James Audubon witnessed a flock that took three days to fly over a locality in north central Kentucky,” said Jessica Oswald, a former Florida Museum ornithology graduate student.
The populous pigeons couldn’t survive large-scale commercial hunting and habitat loss, however. The world’s last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden on Sept. 1, 1914, at 29 years old.
“Museum scientists have been studying endangered and extinct birds around the world for 20 years,” Florida Museum exhibit developer Tina Choe said. “We’re very excited to highlight the Passenger Pigeon story because understanding the past is one key to a better future.”
Baby pigeons with mother (wood pigeon), born in a flower pot, on the windowsill, in Paris, France.
The exhibit explains how the loss of the Passenger Pigeon changed social attitudes and spurred new legislation protecting migratory birds, which played a part in saving other species from the same fate. It takes more than laws to conserve wildlife, however, so visitors may learn in the exhibit what small, easy steps they can take to protect Florida’s native birds.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons
The New York Pigeon is a photography book that reveals the unexpected beauty of the omnipresent pigeon as if Vogue magazine devoted its pages to birds, rather than fashion models. In spite of pigeons’ ubiquity in New York and other cities, we never really see them closely and know very little about their function in the urban ecosystem. This book brings to light the intriguing history, behavior and splendor of a bird that we frequently overlook.
The result of eight years of passionate inquiry is a photographic study of the birds’ power and allure (as seen on the cover of New York magazine and the New York Times). The dramatic, hyper-real individual studio portraits capture the personalities, expressiveness, glorious feather iridescence and deeply hued eyes. High-speed strobe photography illustrates pigeons’ graceful flight and dramatic wing movements (as featured in Audubon magazine).
While The New York Pigeon is primarily a photography book, it also tells the five-thousand-year story of the feral pigeon. Why are pigeons so successful in cities and not in the countryside? Why do they have such diverse plumage? How have pigeons adapted to survive on almost any food? Why are pigeons able to fly up to 500 miles per day but rarely do?
How did Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner teach pigeons to do complicated tasks, from tracking missile targets to recognizing individual human faces? Why can pigeons see in the ultraviolet light spectrum and half of their brain is used for visual perception?
The New York Pigeon lovingly describes and illuminates the beauty of nature that is alive in our midst. With this book, the beautiful, savvy, graceful, kind pigeon will be invisible no more.
Andrew Garn is a native New Yorker who grew up surrounded by pigeons, he has been photographing, rehabilitating and observing Columba Livia for eight years. Since 2008, when he exhibited photographs, video installations and sculptures of pigeons at A.M. Richard Fine Art in Brooklyn, NY, he has continued to photograph them. Documenting the entire spectrum of development, including full-grown pigeons, newborns, babies and “squeakers”, he has grown to love these birds.
Mr. Garn is a fine art and editorial photographer whose work has been widely exhibited and appeared in the pages of numerous magazines including the New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Forbes, Interview, Vogue, Vibe, Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, French Photo, Elle Décor, New York and Bloomberg LP. He is also the recipient of grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Graham Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the J.M. Kaplan Fund, among others.
Singapore, Singapore – April 2, 2024. Pigeons standing on wire in Chinatown, Singapore
His previous books include Exit to Tomorrow: The History of the Future (Rizzoli, 2007), Subway Style: Architecture and Design of the NYC Subway (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, and the MTA 2005), winner of New York Society Book Award, The Houseboat Book (Rizzoli/Universe 2003), and Bethlehem Steel (Princeton Architectural Press 2000).
Emily S. Rueb is an editor for the New York Times metropolitan section. She writes regularly on avian subjects and was the creator of Bird Week and the “Hawk Cam” which chronicled the lives of a red-tailed hawk family in Washington Square Park.
Rita McMahon is the founding director of New York City’s only wildlife rehabilitation facility the Wild Bird Fund. The non- profit facility, operated by
volunteers and vet science trainees helps over 4,500 injured birds per year.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Spike, Pigeons, Sparrows
Homing pigeons with their cryptic inborn GPS systems have been reliably delivering messages for at least three millennia. Pigeons announced the winners of ancient Olympiads. They delivered military messages for Genghis Khan and were the first to reach England with the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo. They’ve brought home the mail in war and peace. Many were awarded medals for distinguished service in World Wars One and Two.2 (No less amazing, of course, are the enormous migratory feats of other birds, but homing pigeons are easier to study because they travel on cue and not in response to the seasons.)
Pigeon With Egg in the nest photography. Birds Photography. Pigeon Hatching Eggs
And while “the magnetic sense of pigeons provides an excellent compass for orientation,” writes Hagstrum, “the geomagnetic field makes a poor map.”
Homing pigeons likely rely on a number of sensory cues to find their way home. While vision may be valuable locally, birds with frosted contact lenses manage to arrive after long trips to within 500 meters of their destination, so sight doesn’t seem to be the key.3 And while “the magnetic sense of pigeons provides an excellent compass for orientation,” writes Hagstrum, “the geomagnetic field makes a poor map.”4
The June 1997 pigeon disaster was one of four pigeon races disrupted in 1997 and 1998 in Europe and the northeastern United States. The only common element, as Hagstrum reported back in the year 2000, was the intersection of the racecourses with the path of an accelerating Concorde supersonic transport.5 This finding supported the idea that pigeons don’t achieve their precision long-distance navigation through reliance on vision or the earth’s magnetic field, since sonic booms disrupt neither. Yet the question remained: how do sonic booms disturb the birds’ natural abilities?
Hagstrum said, “When I realized the birds in that race were on the same flight path as the Concorde, I knew it had to be infrasound.” Infrasound is extremely low frequency sound generated by deep ocean waves. These waves cause tiny vibrations of planetary surfaces and atmosphere, called microseisms and microbaroms, respectively. Because of variations in terrain, infrasonic characteristics can form a map of the landscape.
Hagstrum’s latest study, published 15 February 2013 in the Journal of Experimental Biology, sorted through data on pigeon flights in upstate New York between 1968 and 1987 and confirmed that sonic boom disruption of the “sounds of silence” was likely responsible for the 1997 loss of over 60,000 trained birds. Moreover, his study represents a major piece for the how-birds-navigate puzzle.
The New York birds were part of a Cornell University experimental program. For nearly two decades researchers recorded that birds released from one of three standard sites—Jersey Hill—generally failed to make it home. Those from the other sites could find their way. Only once in those two decades did the Jersey Hill birds make it home to Cornell: on August 13, 1969. Meteorological records demonstrated that the area on that day experienced a temperature inversion. Hagstrum believes, based on acoustic modeling, that the terrain of the path between Jersey Hill and Cornell normally creates a “sound shadow,” obscuring the home loft by directing the infrasonic signals associated with it high into the atmosphere. On the one good day, differing atmospheric conditions would have made the infrasonic signals detectable to birds from Jersey Hill.6
Hagstrum believes that infrasonic signals from a home loft normally act like a homing beacon for birds to get their bearings as they orient using other signals such as the sun or stars, the earth’s magnetic field, and visual or olfactory clues.7 Ill-timed sonic booms, earthquakes, and terrain that coincidentally misdirects the sound waves as they propagate through the air all have the potential to disrupt infrasonic signals that normally bring these birds home.
You may listen to these subtle sounds yourself in amplified recordings from the University of Hawaii Infrasound Laboratory.8 As you listen, marvel at the ways God designed for birds to find their way using an earthward-directed GPS-like system for more than 6,000 years since creation.
by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Netting
It’s a modern mystery: how did 60,000 homing pigeons get lost between France and England on June 29, 1997, during the race commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association? Unraveling the cause of this bizarre event, Jonathan Hagstrum of the U.S. Geological Survey may have finally filled in the pieces to the more ancient question of how these remarkable birds normally find their way home from distant unfamiliar places in all weather, day or night, in the first place.
Feral pigeons (Columba livia domestica) in love.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den, 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 De-fence, Pigeon Nesting, Bird Droppings, Pigeon Dropping, woodpecker control, 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, Pigeon control, Bird deterrents, Pigeon deterrents, Bird control, solutions, Pigeon prevention, Pigeon repellent, Bird proofing, Pest bird management, Pigeon spikes, Bird netting, Humane bird control, Bird exclusion, Urban bird control, Anti-roosting devices, Pigeon removal, Bird barriers
by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Spikes, Columbidae, Doves
Passenger pigeons, so abundant during the early 19th century that skies darkened with passing flocks, may often have been nothing special in numbers during much of their last million years.
DNA from the extinct species, coaxed from toe pads of three museum specimens, suggests that population numbers fluctuated in the long term. The breeding population could have been at times only roughly several hundred thousand or even just tens of thousands of birds, says Chih-Ming Hung of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.
That’s a surprise. A survey of various other animals suggests that the size of the breeding population, like that pulled from the pigeon DNA, is typically about one-tenth of the whole population, Hung says. Yet the estimates of breeding populations in the new study are only one ten-thousandth of the 3 billion to 5 billion birds estimated in 19th-century eyewitness reports.
Hung doesn’t dispute those huge 19th century estimates. The DNA tells a story of bird numbers that soared and sank over time, he and his colleagues argue June 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He would need more analysis, he says, to see if an extreme crash during the most recent Ice Age would have produced such a skewed ratio in the last century. Or, in a more controversial scenario, he proposes that passenger pigeons may have had population booms and busts repeatedly on much shorter time scales.
Hung became curious about genetic trends of the passenger pigeon after a pivotal conversation several years ago regarding the 100th anniversary this September of the death of Martha, a passenger pigeon in the Cincinnati Zoo and the last known individual of the species.
Museum specimens’ toe pads provide the best picture yet of passenger pigeon genetics, Hung says. From the amount of variation the researchers found in the specimens’ DNA, they could work out an approximate number for the birds that were passing on their genes, called the effective population size.
Over the last million years, Hung and his colleagues found, the typical number of breeding birds could have averaged something like 330,000. Another method found lower numbers but a similarly small order of magnitude: 170,000 at the population’s height to perhaps 50,000 at its worst. The ups and downs over deep history fit with the timing of glacial cycles and with computer simulations of the niches available for the birds as climate changed.
Genetic tests can’t detect population ups and downs at the scale of a mere century. But Hung and his colleagues speculate that pigeon populations might have fluctuated in the short term too, perhaps shrinking drastically during times of skimpy acorns.
In theory, a species that surges in mind-boggling numbers certainly can go extinct quickly, says entomologist Jeffrey A. Lockwood of the University of Wyoming. The Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) is an example that savaged wide swaths of cropland during its booms but abruptly went extinct at the end of the 19th century when farmers took over the very specific habitats it needed to breed.
But passenger pigeons couldn’t have boomed in huge numbers quickly, says conservation biologist Stanley Temple of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The birds tended just one nest a year and raised one chick. “There is absolutely no way these birds could rapidly increase their numbers,” he says. “It would take them probably centuries to increase their population even tenfold, let alone several orders of magnitude.”
Hung and critics agree that natural cycles, either short- or long-term, do not mean that the passenger pigeon would have eventually cycled into oblivion on its own. David Blockstein, senior scientist at the National Council for Science and the Environment in Washington, D.C., has described how intensive shooting at breeding colonies contributed to the species’ demise by disrupting its reproduction. And ecologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University says, “The basic cause for the passenger pigeon’s decline was the destruction of the Eastern forests.” The message of the paper, Hung says, is that “the passenger pigeon had repeatedly recovered from population lows throughout its history.” Then came 19th-century humans.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes
I LIKE pigeons. Their voices are soft and rhythmic. I have put up baskets for them in the front verandah and they live there quietly. They don’t ask for food – probably because they are fed at the roundabout near my house by compassionate people who come from far to drop grains for them every day. I have a bird table of rice and fruit so they can feed there whenever they want.
The Mumbai Municipal Commissioner has made it the feature of his (hopefully brief) tenure that he will get rid of the pigeons from Mumbai. Those who go looking for something to hate and often pick on pigeons should know what they have done for us humans over the years.
The first airmail using pigeons was established in 1896 in New Zealand and was known as the Pigeon-Gram Service. Their speed averaged 77.6 mph, only 40% slower than a modern aircraft. Each pigeon carried 5 messages and special Pigeon-Gram stamps were sold for each message carried.
In the First World War, pigeons were used extensively for carrying messages. German marksmen were deployed to shoot the birds down. Pigeons were carried in tanks and released through tiny portholes in the side. Mine-sweeping boats carried pigeons so that in the event of an attack by a U-boat, a pigeon could be released with a message confirming the exact location of the sinking boat, often resulting in the crew being saved. Seaplanes carried pigeons to relay urgent information about enemy movements. In the Second World War, pigeons were used in active service in Europe, India and Burma.
The last pigeon messaging service in the world was in Odisha called Orissa Police Carrier Pigeon Service and it disbanded in 2006 after 60 years of active service and 800 birds. Carrier pigeons had provided daily communications between Orissa’s 400 police stations across the state. They carried essential messages during two natural disasters: the massive cyclone in 1971 and the unprecedented floods in 1982. Their ability to fly in adverse weather conditions saved many human lives.
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In the 5th century BC the first network of pigeon messengers is thought to have been established in Assyria and Persia by Cyrus the Great. In 2000 BC they were carrying messages to warring groups in Mesopotamia. In 53 B.C they carried Hannibal’s dispatches. Julius Caesar used pigeons during the conquest of Gaul from 58 to 51 BC. Indian and Arab merchants used carrier pigeons when visiting China. At the first Olympic Games held in 776 BC, every athlete had a homing pigeon from his village. If he won his event, his would be the bird that carried the news home.
Between 63 BC – AD 21, the Greek geographer Strabo noted that pigeons flew between certain points along the Mediterranean coastline to carry messages of the arrival of fish shoals for waiting fishermen.
The news agency Reuters originally used pigeons to disseminate news in the 1840s. Paul Julius Reuter’s pigeons only stopped when the telegram was invented. In 1870 they carried messages throughout France during the siege of Paris.
In 1915, at the start of the First Great War, two Pigeon Corps were established on the Western Front, consisting of 15 pigeon stations each with 4 birds and a handler. The Pigeon Corps was so successful that further birds were recruited, and the service expanded considerably. By the end of the war the Pigeon Corps consisted of 400 men and 22,000 pigeons in 150 mobile lofts. Messages would be put into a small canister and then attached to the pigeon’s leg. The bird would be released and would return to its loft behind allied lines, sounding a bell to confirm that it had landed. Each airfield along the coast of England had its own loft so that pigeons could be dispatched with messages in the event of invasion. Bomber crews usually carried a pair of pigeons so that in the event that the plane was shot down, the birds could be released with details of the crash site.
These birds played a major role in the Intelligence Service in the First World War. They were sent to maintain contact with resistance movements across Europe. Fewer than 10% survived the shell fire, small arms fire, poison gas.
In 1940, 300 crates of pigeons were dropped into Enemy-occupied areas of Europe, each bird being packed into a box with food for 10 days. Instructions and a questionnaire were put in the box. If found by an ally, information about enemy movement could be put inside the container on the bird’s leg and the bird released to fly back. 16,544 pigeons were parachuted into occupied Europe during the Second Great War. Only 1,842 returned.
Hand-drawn funny cute illustration – Curious pigeons.
Over 1,00,000 British pigeons lost their lives in military service. Red Cock flew back a torpedoed trawler carrying the grid reference of the sinking boat and saving the crew. In October 1918, 500 men of the 77th Infantry were trapped in Argonne, France with no food or ammunition and being bombarded by their own side. The major sent the pigeon Cher Ami with a message for rescue. The bird was shot through the breast by enemy fire and fell to the ground. She got back into the air and flew 25 miles back to Division Headquarters in 25 minutes. The men were saved. Cher Ami had delivered the message despite having been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye and with a leg hanging by only a tendon. The Dickin medal is awarded to any animal that has distinguished itself through an act of bravery in wartime. Of the 55 medals awarded to date, pigeons have been recognized 32 times- much less than they deserve because they saved the lives of lakhs of people. The American and Australian Services also used pigeons extensively and had their own pigeon units operating indifferent countries. So did Burma (Myanmar) and India.
Some years ago, the Indian army captured a pigeon carrying a message from the Pakistan army.
Pigeons were used for aerial photography. A miniature camera was mounted to the bird’s breast via a canvass harness and the pigeon sent to areas of strategic importance to capture images. The films provided information about enemy troop movements and air bases. Information relating to exact positions of the V1 flying bomb site in Peenemunde in Germany was conveyed by pigeons – information that turned the tide of the war.
In 2004 an impressive memorial to commemorate all the animals and birds killed during wartime was erected in Hyde Park. Pigeons have been given pride of place in the sculpture with two pack mules in the foreground weighed down with munitions and cannon parts.
Pigeons more than any other animal have been man’s best friend in times of crisis. They give of themselves for a just a handful of grain. You need to repay your debt every day.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Columbidae
If you’ve been around Ryerson, chances are that you have heard of, or maybe even got the chance to see, the one-legged pigeon. This famous icon is well-known for roaming the campus, along with being one of the school’s greatest memes.
When The Eye spoke with the pigeons five years ago, there were reports of a second wave of the Pigeons’ Movement. Recently, we have been in contact with some inside voices. After deciphering their coo-coos and squawks, it turns out that the second wave Pigeons’ Movement fell through because the leading figure went missing—the one-legged pigeon.
To get to the bottom of this, I set out to find her. It would be no easy task—the only way to do that is to explore every inch of Ryerson. Her Twitter hasn’t been updated since 2014. While searching around campus, I encountered many pigeons. But to the demise of the entire student body, all these pigeons had two legs.
All of the pigeons were quite strange. There were many different pigeons—concrete pecking, bread pecking, aggressive wing flapping. None of the pigeons could even gracefully win in a breadcrumb fight. The pigeon community has really taken a hit since this tragedy struck.
I asked the pigeons if they knew anything about the word on the street, but none had any useful information. It seems as though the pigeon’s movement is no longer birds of a feather. Actually, some of them even seemed bird-brained.
The regular day-to-day pigeons weren’t much help, but we searched the dustiest of alleyways and found a lone pigeon smoking a cigarette and wearing a trenchcoat.
After demanding a payment of seven Ritz crackers, he told us one of his feathered associates received a telepathic message that the one-legged pigeon is still alive, and is planning something big. We still don’t know if what the mysterious pigeon’s associate’s friend said was reliable or true. Due to not wanting to suffer an Alfred Hitchcock-esque death and get picked to pieces by the pigeons, we did not press further.
For now, unfortunately, the one-legged pigeon is still missing. Alas, I still have hope. I won’t stop working on this story. I’m willing to bet my last One Card dollars that Ryerson will be blessed with the return of this legend.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
Bird Gone, Pigeon Gone, Pigeon problems, pigeon spikes, 1-877-4NO-BIRD, 4-S Gel, Bird Control, Pigeon Control, bird repellent, Bird Spikes, sonic bird repellent, stainless steel bird spikes, bird spikes Vancouver, Ultra Sonic Bird Control, Bird Netting, Plastic Bird Spikes, Canada bird spike deterrents, Pigeon Pests, B Gone Pigeon, Pigeon Patrol, pest controller, pest control operator, pest control technician, Pigeon Control Products, humane pigeon spikes, pigeon deterrents, pigeon traps, Pigeon repellents, Sound & Laser Deterrents, wildlife control, raccoon, skunk, squirrel deterrent, De-Fence Spikes, Dragons Den, 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 De-fence, Pigeon Nesting, Bird Droppings, Pigeon Dropping, woodpecker control, 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, Pigeon control, Bird deterrents, Pigeon deterrents, Bird control, solutions, Pigeon prevention, Pigeon repellent, Bird proofing, Pest bird management, Pigeon spikes, Bird netting, Humane bird control, Bird exclusion, Urban bird control, Anti-roosting devices, Pigeon removal, Bird barriers
by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Netting
Growing up, I loved hearing Tom Lehrer sing “Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park.” Not that I wished harm on the innocent birds. In fact I was something of an aspiring birder at the time. I just enjoyed Lehrer’s dark humor.
But the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility, on England’s northwest coast, made that song a reality. Sellafield was poisoning pigeons routinely with its radioactive releases. It was just that, for a while, no one knew it.
Not until, that is, two middle-aged twin sisters, living in the nearby small town of Seascale, began overpopulating their garden with pigeons. Jane and Barrie Robinson fed and cared for the birds out of love. They called their place the Singing Surf pigeon sanctuary.
But the neighbors weren’t so happy about it. Adhering to to the usual pigeon cliché about “flying rats”, and fearing a health hazard from all the droppings, they called authorities on the bird ladies of Sellafield. And the strange tale began to unfold.
It was February 1998, and an inspector from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) came to the Robinson home. Concerned that the birds might be radioactive, given their habit of roosting on the Sellafield roofs, he collected and culled 150 pigeons, who were taken to the reprocessing center for testing. The findings sparked alarming headlines.
“Sellafield scare over radioactive pigeons”, blared The Independent, a national broadsheet newspaper at the time (now online only.) The article said that “a radiation scare” was underway and that “urgent analysis of the dead birds is being carried out.”
The Robinson pigeons showed “significant” levels of radiation. The rattled RSPCA inspector was tested for his own exposure and the group said that in future its staff would wear hazmat suits when handling animals in the Sellafield area.
Another 200 birds were culled and eventually 2,000. The Robinson’s garden was deemed a radioactive waste site and had to be excavated and removed for disposal, taken to the nearby Drigg radioactive waste dump, along with the tarmac driveway. All the garden furniture went, too. Eventually the UK government was forced to issue a ban on handling or eating pigeons within a 10-mile radius of Sellafield.
On Seascale beach there are plenty of warnings about dogs, but none about the Sellafield radioactive contamination there. (Photo: Linda Pentz Gunter)
Of course, the pigeon scare was not the first time radiation exposure had raised concerns in the region. Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment had long been watchdogging Sellafield and calling out its inadequate response to accidents and leaks at the facility, as well as the harm it was doing to health and the environment.
The health impacts had been brought into stark focus by a 1991 study by MJ Gardner, who found elevated rates of leukemia among local children.
Gardner noted that “Cohort studies indicated that the excess of leukemia was concentrated among children born in Seascale and was not found among those moving in after birth and suggested that any causal factors may be acting before birth or very early in life.”
The study’s most startling revelation was a connection between the “raised incidence of leukemia in children and father’s recorded external radiation dose during work at Sellafield before his child’s conception.”
But back to the pigeon story and fast forward to June 2, 2010, when it goes from bizarre to worse.
Warning Poisonous Gas Dead Bird Symbol Sign, Vector Illustration, Isolate On White Background Label. EPS10
A 52-year old man called Derrick Bird — yes, that was his name — went on a mass shooting rampage. This was an unusual event in the UK then and now. The first person Bird killed was his own twin brother, David. Then he killed another twin, Jane Robinson, one of the two bird ladies of Sellafield.
Before he was done, Bird had slaughtered 12 people, and wounded 11, before taking his own life. Other than the killing of his twin, the victims appeared to have been chosen at random.
According to a BBC story on the murders, “The coffin of animal lover Jane Robinson was adorned with a pigeon made of dyed grey chrysanthemums and birds’ feathers.”
Bird kills bird woman whose birds were killed….it doesn’t get much stranger.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services
A couple out for a walk in eastern France have discovered a tiny capsule containing a message despatched by a Prussian soldier over a century ago using a carrier pigeon.
The message from an infantry soldier based at Ingersheim, written in German in a barely legible hand, detailed military manoeuvres apparently during the first world war and was addressed to a superior officer, said Dominique Jardy, curator of the Linge Museum at Orbey in eastern France.
The date is marked 16 July but the year is not perfectly clear, appearing to be written as either 1916 or 1910. The first world war took place from 1914 to 1918.
The message reads: “Platoon Potthof receives fire as they reach the western border of the parade ground, platoon Potthof takes up fire and retreats after a while.
“In Fechtwald half a platoon was disabled. Platoon Potthof retreats with heavy losses.”
At the time, Ingersheim – now in France’s Grand Est department – was part of Germany.
A couple found the tiny capsule with its well-preserved contents in September this year in a field in Ingersheim, said Jardy, who raved about the “super rare” discovery.
They brought it to the nearest museum, the one at Orbey dedicated to one of the bloodiest battles of the first world war.
Jardy had enlisted the help of a German friend to decrypt the message, he said.
The tiny piece of paper and capsule will become part of the museum’s permanent display.
Source
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Sep 19, 2024 | Bird Netting
BOCA RATON — In a community proud of its well-off residents, fancy shops and upscale resorts, pigeon droppings outside City Hall are taken seriously.
City workers have used pressure sprayers to wash the droppings away and tried electricity and a recording of a hawk screeching to scare off the pigeons, but the birds — and their mess — remain.
“The pigeons hang out on the light fixtures and the droppings get on the sidewalk right in front of the front door,” Assistant City Manager George Brown said.
In their first attempt to get rid of the birds, workers rigged 12-volt wires around the City Hall’s windows, where the pigeons like to roost. That’s not enough electricity to kill the birds, but workers hoped it would make them uncomfortable enough to move, which they did — a few feet away to some light fixtures.
This month, workers installed a speaker on the roof, hoping that recordings of screeching hawks would drive them away. The pigeons, in their own way, just laughed.
“They just decided they like it here for some reason,” Brown said.
Tim Brown, the education director at a nearby wildlife hospital, said the common pigeon — which is actually the African rock dove — lives on stone outcroppings in the wild, making them perfect city dwellers.
“Architecturally, we build all these wonderful habitats for pigeons,” he said. To get rid of the birds, he suggests chicken wire, which would be unsightly, or installing strips studded with needles.
But city officials have other ideas.
“Poison corn,” said Bob DiChristopher, deputy director of municipal services. After a moment’s pause, he added: “That’s just a joke.”
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Aug 13, 2024 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Law
The Cheesy Toast Stack, a popular sandwich shop in St Andrews, has introduced a unique countermeasure against an unusual problem: seagull theft. Dubbed ‘seagull insurance’, this initiative gives customers the option to pay an additional £1 to safeguard their purchase against aerial bandits.
Angry seagull with open beak
Sam Larg, the founder of The Cheesy Toast Stack, spoke to The Telegraph about the challenges his business faces with the increasing boldness of local seagulls. During the peak summer months, the problem of these birds swooping down to snatch customers’ food has intensified. “Replacing up to 10 sandwiches a day has pushed us to think innovatively about solutions,” Larg commented. With 10 years in business, this summer has been notably problematic, marked by frequent disturbances from the birds.
The new insurance scheme was conceived as a way to manage the financial burden of providing free replacements for stolen food. Larg expressed his concern about the sustainability of their previous approach: “It always felt cold-hearted to turn down a customer for a replacement, but continuously offering free meals is becoming untenable for our business.”
The insurance option is not just a business move but also carries a community spirit. Larg plans to donate any profits from the insurance at the end of the season to local entities, such as the football club and charities. This gesture aims to support community initiatives while addressing the shop’s operational challenges.
The background to this peculiar issue was highlighted by recent research from Emma Inzani of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter’s Penryn Campus. Her study on seagull behaviour indicates that while these birds do occasionally steal human food, they show a natural preference for their traditional diet of fish, such as mackerel and sprat. Inzani suggests that reduced fish availability in UK waters might be driving the gulls to adapt to more urban food sources. “Although urban foods are more accessible, seagulls still choose fish whenever possible, which is less energy-consuming than scavenging in urban areas,” she explained.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 9, 2024 | Bird Netting
Where Did All the Pigeons Go?
People have been commenting on the disappearance of city pigeons for several years, and not just in Portland.
Pigeons? Downtown? Are you feeling feverish, Karrie? Everyone knows there’s never been anything but crows downtown. Pigeons, indeed! Next you’ll be telling me Oceania hasn’t always been at war with Eurasia.
Just kidding! People besides you have been commenting on the disappearance of city pigeons for several years, and not just in Portland: Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia and even New York City have all seen dropoffs in the birds’ population. Estimates of the decline nationwide range from 30% to 46% since the 1970s.
What’s going on? Experts point to many factors: modern construction trends that provide fewer nesting spaces, pollution that taxes the birds’ respiratory systems and contaminates food sources, diseases like avian influenza, human activities like trapping or unhealthy feeding, and even climate change, which may disrupt the pigeons’ ability to find food and shelter.
In other words, they don’t know. A popular theory on message boards is that pigeons are being outcompeted by wily crows. This jibes with the anecdotal ob
servation that crows seem to be becoming more numerous, at least in Portland. But I ask you: If crows are so perfectly adapted, why haven’t they been Portland’s dominant avian scavenger this whole time? It seems likelier that pigeons are tanking for their own reasons; crows are just seizing the opportunity.
Still, that does invite the question: Why did pigeons beat out crows in the first place? Well, baby birds need protein to grow. Adult pigeons have the ability to produce a high-protein secretion, called “crop milk,” to feed them. This guaranteed protein supply lets pigeons breed year round. Crows, which have to scare up protein wherever they can, only breed in the spring, when protein-filled bugs and worms are plentiful.
That said, crop milk doesn’t seem to be helping pigeons much now. Perhaps someday we’ll learn why. In the meantime, I can’t help noticing that pigeons’ 1970s heyday seems to coincide nicely with the peregrine falcon’s DDT-fueled near-extinction. Since then, our local population of falcons (a major pigeon predator) has been steadily increasing, even as pigeons’ numbers have waned. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, but if somebody catches a crow and a falcon working together to paint the pigeons out of some historical photo—well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 9, 2024 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spike, Columbidae, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Sparrows
Eagles and falcons deployed to scare away pigeons in Barcelona
This article is more than 3 months old Trial project aims to drive colonies causing a nuisance at Camp Nou football stadium to nearby parks
Barcelona has recruited a new weapon in its fight to keep the urban pigeon population under control: eagles and falcons.
As part of a trial, teams of three or four birds of prey have started patrolling an area around Camp Nou, FC Barcelona’s football ground, between 8am and 4pm. Pigeons nesting in the ground have been driven out by building works and have relocated to nearby blocks of flats whose residents have demanded action.
The idea is to drive the pigeons into nearby parks where they will be less of a nuisance.
“The birds can eat a few pigeons but that’s not the idea,” said Albert Tomás, a spokesperson for the company contracted to carry out the work. “Besides, a dead pigeon doesn’t learn.”
The mere sight of low-flying birds of prey was enough to unsettle the pigeons, which soon get the message that it was time to move on, said Tomás.
The pilot scheme follows the city’s failed effort to control the population of the estimated 85,000 pigeons through spiking their food with a contraceptive.
In some areas, such as the Plaça de Catalunya in the city centre, the concentration of birds is twice the recommended number.
In 2017 the city successfully used birds of prey to disperse flocks of pigeons that were damaging the roof of the Palau Sant Jordi concert hall.
Carmen Maté, responsible for animal welfare in the city, said that if the Camp Nou pilot proved successful it would be extended to other parts of Barcelona. The city is also campaigning to stop people discarding food in the street, which encourages the growth of the pigeon population.
Most Spanish airports use teams of falcons to deter bird strikes which are estimated to cost the global airline industry $1.2bn (£950,000) a year.
Barcelona airport has a team of 80 falcons, while about 70 peregrine falcons patrol Barajas airport in Madrid.
This is what we’re up against
Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.
Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 9, 2024 | Bird Netting
Pigeon accused of spying for China freed in India after 8-month detention
A pigeon is released from an animal hospital in Mumbai on Jan. 30 after being held for eight months on suspicion of spying for China. (Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times/AP)
A pigeon held for eight months on suspicion of spying for China has been released after Indian authorities determined it was no avian agent of espionage, but a disoriented Taiwanese racing bird that had lost its ay.
Police found the pigeon near a port in Mumbai in May with two metal rings tied to its leg and what looked like Chinese writing on the underside of its wings. For eight months, the alleged secret agent was held in custody, first by police and then by the city’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals, which confirmed local media reports about the pigeon and its origin.
Mumbai police told The Washington Post that after “deep and proper inquiry and investigations,” they did not find “any suspicious material or fact” associated with the pigeon. It was released last week and is in fine health, according to the hospital.
The animal rights nonprofit PETA helped secure the bird’s release. “Like all birds, pigeons should be free to soar in the skies, forage for food, and raise their young as a couple,” PETA India Director Poorva Joshipura said in a statement, which noted that pigeons demonstrate self-awareness and intelligence.
Experts say the bird probably got lost during a race off the coast of Taiwan and may have hitched a ride on a boat to make the roughly 3,000-mile journey.
“A racing pigeon can fly for up to 1,000 kilometers [about 620 miles] in a day, but for it to fly to India, it had to make stops,” said Yang Tsung-te, the head of the Taiwanese racing pigeon trading platform Nice Pigeon, adding that some racing pigeons from the island have made it as far as the United States and Canada.
Alabama racing pigeon ends mysterious trip across the Pacific in Australian man’s backyard
The espionage allegations follow concern in the United States last year over Chinese spy balloons and amid continued tensions between China and India, two nuclear powers that share a contested border and have been vying for influence in the region.
It’s also not the first time Indian authorities wrongfully locked up a pigeon for alleged spying. A similar incident in 2015 sparked amusement in India and Pakistan, and in 2020, police briefly held a Pakistani fisherman’s pigeon after it flew over the countries’ heavily militarized border.
Although the allegations might sound absurd in an age of satellites and cyberespionage, pigeons do have a history of use in reconnaissance operations.
During World War I, Germany deployed pigeons with cameras strapped onto their chests, and in World War II, Allied forces used the birds to exchange secret messages, according to the National Audubon Society, an American nonprofit organization dedicated to bird conservation. Because pigeons are a “common species,” the camera-equipped birds could conceal their intelligence collection “among the activities of thousands of other birds,” according to the CIA, which also developed such a camera.
According to the International Spy Museum in Washington, pigeons were “distinguished by their speed and ability to return home in any weather.”
Those same qualities make pigeons good for racing — a much more common use of the birds these days. During races, pigeons are released sometimes hundreds of miles from home and owners wait for them to return.
Pigeon racing in Iraq: Pricey birds, obsessive owners and, alas, stone-throwing bandits
Colin Jerolmack, a professor at New York University and the author of “The Global Pigeon,” said it was “quite comical” that Indian authorities saw Chinese writing and assumed espionage, especially considering the enormous popularity of pigeon racing there and the fact that China has many “more sophisticated” tools than a pigeon.
Once dubbed “the poor man’s horse racing,” it is becoming big business, he said, noting that winning pigeons can fetch tens of thousands of dollars at auction — or much more.
In Taiwanese competitions, rather than racing over land, pigeons are brought out to sea and released 124 miles to 310 miles offshore, said Ya-Ching Huang, a researcher at Boston University who has studied Taiwan’s pigeon racing culture. Because of this format, “it’s not uncommon for pigeons to end up landing in neighboring countries or on boats that take them even further away,” she said.
While pigeon fanciers maintain that the birds receive great care during training, animal rights groups and ethicists have long criticized the sport. According to PETA, millions of pigeons die every year in Taiwan’s seasonal races, with many drowning from exhaustion, dying in storms or being killed for being too slow.
In racing and espionage, “pigeons are used as tools for human ends,” said Jan Deckers, a researcher at Newcastle University in Britain who studies animal ethics. “No pigeon chooses to release themselves a long way away from their lofts and to carry messages, tags or rings back home.”
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 9, 2024 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes
Birth control for bird control? Toronto put pigeons on the pill to fight the flock
A city pilot that put pigeons on the pill to regulate the population costs about $24,000 a year and is listed as a success in this year’s budget.
Toronto’s pigeon problemA city pilot that put pigeons on the pill to regulate the population costs about $24,000 a year and is listed as a success in this year’s budget.
Luis Canseco gets anxious when he walks across the Yonge Street and Finch Avenue intersection because he knows he’s directly in the line of fire.
Not from cars or trucks — Canseco keeps a wary eye on the wires overhead where dozens of pigeons congregate, feather to feather.
Whether he can make it across unscathed has become a crapshoot. “I’ve been hit with liquid three times in the last year,” said Canseco. “Now I cross it with an umbrella, rain or not.”
Toronto’s prodigious pigeon population has long been a frustration for residents who — even away from their excrement-painted balconies — can seem like collateral damage in a war being waged between those who want to feed the flocks and those who want them gone.
Coun. Lily Cheng (Ward 18 Willowdale), whose ward includes Canseco’s intersection, said many residents have complained about the influx in recent years.
“There’s many condo residents who no longer feel like they can use their balconies, which is what precious outdoor space they have,” said Cheng, noting there’s been more signage in her ward imploring people to stop feeding the birds. “It’s just not hygienic and hard to keep clean.”
In an effort to humanely reduce the numbers of feathered bombers, the city has put some of them on the pill, an endeavour listed as a success in this year’s budget. Under the pilot project that began in May 2022, the city has set up feeders in four locations across the city that dispense feed laced with OvoControl — birth control for birds.
Esther Attard, veterinarian and director of Toronto Animal Services, said her department worked with a pest control company to set up automated rooftop feeders: two downtown, one in East York and one in North York. City staff are looking at adding a fifth downtown.
According to Attard, OvoControl has proven to be a humane, successful baby blocker for birds in various countries, including Spain where a recent study showed a steady decrease in the avian population after several years.
The feeders dispense a fixed amount of food that contains the birth control pellets at the same time every day. The flock size is then tracked by a nearby camera, although it’s nearly impossible to get the same pigeons to take their daily dose.
Attard said the pilot costs about $500 per site for a flock of no more than 150 pigeons, or about $2,000 a month for all four sites.
Attard said there has been “some decrease” in the flock size, but she expects to have a better picture of its progress by the summer.
“The bulk of them are domestic, abandoned pigeons,” she said, noting the 2022 bylaw amendment to restrict the number of pigeons residents can keep. “The difficulty has been getting people to stop feeding and conditioning them.”
Canseco said he’s concerned about the health implications of having so much excrement around the city, but Attard noted that while it could carry silicosis or salmonella, the risk to humans is notably low and rarely poses a public health threat.
Vancouver’s TransLink tried a similar tactic at eight SkyTrain stations in 2019. The city’s automated rapid transit was often disrupted by pigeons that ended up on the tracks, triggering intrusion alarms, hard brakes and unnecessary service delays. A spokesperson for TransLink said the project lasted 18 months and returned in 2022 at seven stations. While the pigeon populations have not increased, Thor Diakow said, they also haven’t declined.
Attard said the method doesn’t harm the birds, even if they embrace their greed for feed and swallow more than one daily dose, but it also doesn’t harm what few seagulls and squirrels have gotten into the laced food.
Nathalie Karvonen, biologist and executive director of animal rescue Toronto Wildlife Centre, neither endorses nor condemns the pilot project.
“People tend to ride into two camps: either they are adamant they must continue to feed animals or they’re very upset because there’s too many pigeons,” Karvonen said, adding that as long as it’s humane and fiscally responsible the pilot is better than the cruel practices of poisoning or trapping and killing them.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 9, 2024 | Bird Netting
Rock pigeons should not be overlooked. Here’s why
I headed out to Wells Harbor this weekend to see what birds were there: Who was back from the south, who was migrating through and whether anyone was changing plumage as their mating season ramps up?
Instead, I was completely distracted (in a good way) by some common pigeons. They were all over the dock: cooing, strutting around, flying from one perch to another. There were pale gray ones, dark ones, and checkered ones. I had been thinking about seasonal plumage changes.
Rock pigeon with checkered plumage at Wells Harbor in Maine Sunday, March 31, 2024.
For example, just this weekend brilliant yellow male goldfinches showed up at my feeders. They’ve been coming all winter wearing their winter drab colors, now that it is time to mate, the males are getting all fancy. The loons at the harbor were also showing signs of change, transitioning from subdued, faded blacks and whites of winter to their summer colors — striking black and white spotted backs with contrasting white breast. What was up with the pigeons? Were some in breeding plumage? Is there a difference between male and females? Were the dark ones juveniles, as is common with some of the local gulls?
A natural adult rock pigeon at Wells Harbor in Maine Sunday, March 31, 2024.
I’ve tended to write pigeons off when I go birding. After all, they are an introduced species, the descendants of domestic pigeons brought over from Europe back in the 1600s. Rock pigeons (Columba livia) are thought to be one of the first domesticated birds, raised for both their meat and their message-carrying ability. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology “Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphics suggest that pigeons were domesticated more than 5,000 years ago. In fact, these birds have such a long history with humans that it’s impossible to tell where the species’ original range was.” Those domesticated pigeons were carried everywhere that humans went, and many escaped, establishing feral populations on every continent except Antarctica.
Aan adult dark rock pigeon at Wells Harbor in Maine Sunday, March 31, 2024.
Spring was definitely in the air at the harbor. Rock pigeons have been known to raise over six broods per year (these are serious breeders!) so I imagine these pigeons were in the throes of mating season. Some of the pigeons were puffing themselves up and strutting around in circles. These were presumably males-displaying to court females: standing tall, inflating their crops, fanning their tails, and strutting in a circle around the female while cooing in their most alluring manner. This will progress to mutual preening (referred to as nibbling) followed by the male regurgitating some seeds or liquid and feeding the female, one of the final behaviors prior to mating. While rock pigeons are monogamous and mate for life, I think of these displays as our date nights (minus the regurgitation). As with long-married couples, these displays strengthen their bond and indicate readiness to mate.
A rock pigeon strutting over to its mate at Wells Harbor in Maine Sunday, March 31, 2024.
It makes sense that they are nesting at the harbor. In the wild they nest on cliffs (hence the name rock pigeon). In cities and towns they prefer window ledges, traffic lights, roofs and under bridges. We don’t have skyscrapers, but we do have docks and rocky outcroppings.
Pigeons do so well around humans because they are prolific breeders, we build structures that they like to nest on, and they like the food that we grow-they like all sorts of seed crops and, of course, they like breadcrumbs. They are also unbelievable navigators and flyers (one reason they made great messenger birds). Even blindfolded, pigeons can find their way home by sensing the Earth’s magnetic field. They might also use sound, and smell-this is currently being investigated. Without a blindfold they can also use cues based upon the position of the sun (allaboutbirds.com/Rock_Pigeon). They can maintain speeds of 40 mph or more for long periods of time (another reason they made great messenger birds). Rock pigeons are also acrobatic flyers-watch them zoom around a city park, or effortlessly fly between the pilings under a dock-these birds can give most predators a run for their money.
An adult dark rock pigeon at Wells Harbor in Maine Sunday, March 31, 2024.
Those color variations that first caught my eye are just color variations. Pigeons come in a variety of plumages that have nothing to do with gender or age (but probably something to do with the breeding of domesticated birds), so looking for mating displays this time of year is the best way to distinguish males from females. Now that I know more about them, next time I am out birding I’m definitely going to pay more attention to the pigeons.
Susan Pike, a researcher and an environmental sciences and biology teacher at Dover High School, welcomes your ideas for future column topics. Send your photos and observations to spike3116@gmail.com. Read more of her Nature News columns at Seacoastonline.com and pikes-hikes.com, and follow her on Instagram @pikeshikes.
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 9, 2024 | Bird Netting
Meet the N.L. couple finding happiness in pet pigeons
Pet pigeons may be unconventional, but there’s room for love and acceptance
Whether wandering around the Avalon Mall or walking along the harbour during cruise ship season, partners Matthew and Jay Howlett regularly draw curious glances from passersby.
Proudly perched on either of their shoulders is a pigeon wearing pants, and chances are his name is Mr. Earl Grey.
“We get stopped every two seconds,” said Jay Howlett. “[People ask] ‘Is that real?’ Of course he’s real. He’s a gentleman. Look at him.”
Matthew and Jay Howlett are pigeon fanciers who take care of injured and rehabilitated pigeons that need some tender, loving care. Alongside their four pigeons and two diamond doves, the Howletts’ St. John’s apartment is also home to a corn snake, a pumpkin patch tarantula, an African fat tail gecko and a Syrian hamster.
Tiny pants, big hearts: why pigeons make the perfect pets for this St. John’s couple
Jay and Matthew Howlett were already into exotic pets when they discovered the colourful world of pigeon fanciers. The couple began taking in injured birds as pets, and now their apartment is home to a handful of pigeons with big personalities.
Their journey with the small-billed birds began in 2021 when Jay’s friend in Australia showed them their own flock via video calls. Surprised by the notion of pigeon ownership, Jay started researching to find out more about the world of the feathered creatures. What soon followed was a deeper understanding of where the birds — often seen pecking at the ground, eating grit and sand — came from and of their untold stories.
“It turns out that we’ve had them for about 8,000 to 10,000 years in worldwide history. Like, they’ve been with people that long. We’ve had them in World War I and World War II, so they’re veterans. A lot of people own them for racing, which personally I don’t condone. I do find it [to be] cruelty,” said Jay Howlett.
“But the coolest thing in history that I found was that they just co-existed with us. We use their eggs. We use their poop for fertilizer. Unfortunately, they’re on our city streets because of us.”
A man in a beanie stands indoors in a mall with a pigeon on a leash and in a diaper on his shoulder
According to the Howletts, cats and dogs may be mainstream pets, but keeping pigeons can open up a new companionship experience. (Nabila Qureshi/CBC)
Welcome to the family
With a newfound appreciation for pigeons, Jay Howlett reached out to fellow enthusiasts on a pan-Canadian group on Facebook, stating that they were looking to keep a pigeon as a pet.
“W found a really nice fella out in Witless Bay,” he said. “And he was basically like, ‘Pick one, pick two. How many do you want?’ And we end up going with two.”
Named Chai and Mr. Earl Grey, the pigeons took a few months to adjust to their new surroundings and human family. Gradually, their distinct personalities began to shine through.
“Earl Grey is a very dapper, loud gentleman. He loves to strut around the house and hoard all of my yarn. Chai is Earl’s flockmate. He is a little bit more timid and likes to keep to himself. He loves nesting, pretending he has an egg and sitting on it. The egg is a round chapstick,” Jay Howlett said.
A gray pigeon with its eyes closed is wrapped in a blanket. Its eyes are closed.
Waffles rests in a blanket on her first night of being rescued by the Howletts. (Submitted by Jay Howlett)
In 2022, a tip-off from a friend about a starving pigeon outside a convenience shop near Memorial University spurred the Howletts into action beyond mere pet ownership. They brought the bird home, affectionately naming her Waffles.
“We made her very comfortable. We tried our best to make sure that she was hydrated more than anything. We thought she was on the mend, but the stress from being starved and neglected for so long outside in the cold. She ended up having a stroke and she passed away while I was at work,” Jay Howlett said.
Moved by their experience with Waffles, the Howletts devoted themselves to opening up their hearts and home to even more pigeons in need. Along came Peaches, a white homing pigeon found at Bowring Park, and Chilli, whose hunched wings looked like a heavy ash-grey cloak.
“We found him over the summer at Kenny’s Pond and we were just feeding the pigeons like we normally do, and I saw a pigeon that was kind of limping but couldn’t fly,” said Jay Howlett.
“So I picked him up. His wing was broken but already fused in two places and his toe was backwards, so I decided to take him home.”
a man and a woman sit at table, drawing and playing a video game with a pigeon sitting on the man’s shoulder
Jay and Matthew Howlett’s day-to-day life centres on their pigeons and other small pets. (Zach Goudie/CBC )
The Howletts sought care from the Rock Wildlife Rescue, a rehabilitation centre in Torbay. Due to the nature of his injuries, Chilli’s wings had to be clipped, rendering him unable to fly ever again.
“He’s a strong bird. He was our latest one and he’s doing fantastic. He just has a big fear of people. But he knows lately he’s starting to come around and understand that we’ve helped him,” said Jay Howlett.
Matthew Howlett said another pigeon was attacked by a hawk.
“Parts of his body were actually missing,” he said, adding that the operator of the rescue group said that since they found him and got him the proper care, there’s a higher chance that he’s going to live.
Learning to build loving, ‘coo’-operative relationships
When asked why they bring their pigeons outdoors, on a leash, in pigeon pants that act and look like a diaper, their answer is education and awareness.
“We want to be a soft rescue. That’s our goal. We want to be somebody who takes in pigeons from the Rock Wildlife that can’t be re-released and give them proper homes because they deserve it,” said Jay Howlett.
a grey pigeon stands on the edge of a sofa. Its right wing droops low.
While Chilli may be flightless due to injury, he soars to new heights when he’s out and about on the Howletts’ shoulders. (Nabila Qureshi/CBC )
By expanding their haven for the birds, the Howletts also hope to play an important role in addressing overbreeding or abuse toward pigeons.
Ultimately, their message is to keep an eye out for any pigeon showing signs of disorientation, injury or panic from being near animals of prey like feral cats and hawks, and to bring them in for care at the Rock Wildlife Rescue.
“[The] least we can do is throw out a couple of seeds for them — not bread — and then just be nice to them,” said Jay Howlett. “They are just as cold as you are in the winter time, [and] as hot as you are in the summertime.”
Pigeon Patrol
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.
Canada’s top wholesaler for bird deterrent products for twelve consecutive years.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at https://www.pigeonpatrol.ca/
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