A Chicago alderman wants the city to lift a nearly 15-year ban on pigeon racing.
Alderman Gilbert Villegas says pigeon racing is a sport that receives little attention in the U.S. but is “deeply loved” in Poland. Villegas’ ward is home to many Polish residents he says are working with his office to change the city’s law.
The sport features specially trained pigeons that are released from specific locations and race back to their homes.
Villegas’ proposal would lift the ban for people in good standing with a national professional organization that requires minimum standards of care for “pedigreed rock doves.” Each bird would have to be registered with the organization.
The city banned homing pigeons in residential areas in 2004 after complaints from residents.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
The idea of raising barn pigeons as racing pigeons made sense, at least to me. So growing up, I built a coop (with help) behind our garage, then raised and trained barn pigeons as though they were racing pigeons.
I only trained them over a few miles, not the hundreds of miles that racing pigeons (homing pigeons) can do. But my training and buried knowledge in the barn pigeons worked: They came home to my chicken-wire coop.
Memories rushed back this week when I read Fran Spielman’s Sun-Times story on Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) introducing an ordinance at the City Council meeting Wednesday to lift the Chicago ban on pigeon racing. Two other Northwest Side aldermen, Ariel Reboyras (30th) and Nick Sposato (38th), co-sponsored the ordinance.
I would love to see the return of racing pigeons — legally — in Chicago. They’re remarkable creatures.
Barn pigeons, the country cousins of city pigeons, are not as remarkable. The difference between barn or city pigeons and racing pigeons is like the difference between me and Julius Peppers.
Barn and city pigeons are descended from domestic pigeons. Domestic pigeons, such as racing pigeons, descend from rock doves.
The homing instinct is mysterious and remarkable in racing pigeons.
As a kid, my dad would drive me into the city (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and its edifice of a massive library. I read every book on pigeons they had, but I devoured the books on racing pigeons.
I read of the exploits (some were war heroes) and looked at the photos of them — erect and firm specimens, unlike the creatures pecking grain and corn kernels out of manure on farms or the city pigeons picking up bread crumbs.
Racing pigeons required a very special mix of feed. I even found the place that supplied racing food.
On the sports pages of the daily Intelligencer Journal, the agate section (as somebody who did two staff stints as a lowly agate clerk for the Sun-Times’ sports section, I love that part) would include a small piece of fine print from the Red Rose Pigeon Club, now gone as members aged and younger people did not join.
I quickly reached what I could do in terms of training barn pigeons. I learned how to handle them and to get them to fly to me to eat grain from between my lips.
So I dug out a number for the Red Rose Pigeon Club, then found the nerve to call. The guy I reached knew a club member willing to give me an old mated pair. That was a big deal. In those days, a top racing pigeon was worth more than my dad made in a year working in a stone quarry.
There was a good reason for an old pair. While they didn’t mean much to the owner, they meant the world to me. Second, the pair would be imprinted with the old coop, but their young would be imprinted with my chicken-wire coop.
I would love to tell you I grew into a proud junior member of the club. No. While I became good at training and raising racing pigeons, soccer and girls (or the idea of girls) took over my life.
Here’s hoping some young man or woman has the chance to train racing pigeons in Chicago.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Here lies Pippa the Pigeon, beloved mother to 28 chicks, scavenger of crisps, befouler of statues, buried here at the age of 63 (in bird years).
If this sounds unfamiliar, it is because there are no pigeon cemeteries in British cities, nor are there any pigeon crematoria, which rather begs the question: where do pigeons go when they die? According to one estimate, there are up to one million pigeons in London alone. With a life expectancy in the city of as little as four years, this suggests that several million dead pigeons should have piled up around us, but where are they all?
An expert in animal physiology has felt moved to provide an answer to the mystery. Steve Portugal, an ecophysiologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “Foxes, rats, gulls, crows and ravens all do a wonderful job of cleaning up any carrion they come across, including deceased pigeons.
“Alongside these native janitors, domestic cats are equally happy to take care of a dead or injured pigeon . . . this network of surreptitious street cleaners will usually whisk away any pigeon corpses long before they’re seen by human eyes.” Dr Portugal added that when pigeons are ill or injured, they often hide. He wrote on The Conversation, a news website: “[They] instinctively retreat to dark, remote places — ventilation systems, attics, building ledges — hoping to remain out of reach and unnoticed by predators. The predators don’t see them but neither do we: often when pigeons expire they are in hiding.”
He added: “Dying of old age is not a luxury afforded to most pigeons. As soon as they shows signs of slowness or sickness, many are snapped up by peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, or other predators.
“Whether snatched midair by birds of prey, entangled by man-made obstacles or alone in a remote corner of a skyscraper’s roof garden, there are many ways that pigeons pass on from this world. But they all take place within an internal urban ecosystem, that, for the most part, is hidden from our sight.”
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
WASHINGTON — Court records obtained by WUSA9 show the accused shooter who killed five journalists from the Capital Gazette newspaper on Thursday spent years filing lawsuits, petitions and motions against a long list of people who came in his line of sight.
Anne Arundel county prosecutors have charged Jarrod W. Ramos with five counts of murder in the first degree.
WUSA9 sifted through more than 300 records, diving into Ramos’s history inside and outside of the courtroom.
The documents obtained by WUSA9 begin in 2011, when a woman Ramos attended high school with asked law enforcement to file charges against him for harassment. The victim told prosecutors Ramos began contacting her via the internet in 2009.
In a handwritten statement seeking a peace order, the victim told the court “initially the nature of these emails was friendly,” but said later they became “increasingly alarming, vulgar, and incoherent.” She alleged Ramos told her to harm herself and called her place of employment with a disparaging remark.
The court granted her request for a peace order in 2011, the first of at least two the victim filed and granted against Ramos.
He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of harassment on July 26th, 2011. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation, which included a responsibility to attend counseling and have no contact with the victim,-a condition he’d later seek to “clarify.”
On July 31, 2011, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, Eric Thomas Hartley, described his case in a column about internet harassment.
The story enraged Ramos.
Court records show months after the story ran, Ramos requested reconsideration of his sentence. In November 2011, a judge struck the guilty finding from the record and allowed for probation before judgment, a conditional probation before sentencing.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
It was spring, and the young Red Oak tree was proud to say it was growing tall. Its lovely red leaves were unfolding and spreading out, and it longed to grow as tall as the bigger Red Oaks, that elite group of its “seniors” whose branches made a beautiful red canopy above.
They whispered and giggled and told secrets to each other, their leaves rustling in the wind. The young Red Oak usually missed out on these conversations, because it had been too small and too much of a sleepy head. Now that it was awake and growing each day, it was almost the size of the older Oaks, and it was looking forward to being a part of the “club”. “Welcome, Kid”, said a good natured Red Oak tree that stood a little away from where it was. “We’ve been watching you grow. You’re lucky you made it this far!”
“Lucky?” said the young Red Oak, a little puzzled. “Why do you say that?” The older Oak tree shrugged. “Ah, you wouldn’t know. Do you see those Great White Oak trees, growing tall above us?” The young Red Oak squinted upwards. It saw for the first time that there were several bigger trees that towered tall over the beautiful Red Oaks, atleast a hundred feet in height. They were more in number as well. “Oh!” gasped the young one, “These are numerous! And huge! But what does that have to do with us?”
“Well, you’ll see quite soon”, said the older Red Oak. “Now that you’re tall enough, and aware of your surroundings, you’ll see what keeps us Red Oaks from prospering in this land”, it said mysteriously. No sooner had it finished speaking when there was a curious rumbling sound that reverberated through the North American forest. The sky seemed to darken as if thunder clouds were looming over the horizon. The rumble soon grew into a cacophony that became louder and louder, and soon the young tree could make out the source of this noise: an enormous flock of pigeons, so many in number that they covered the sky like a dark blanket blocking out the sun, was making its way towards them.
The flapping of the wings of thousands of the pigeons seemed to sound like the flapping of the giant wings of a single unearthly monster. The hungry pigeons attacked the Red Oak trees with a force that surprised the young tree. It was still small, and didn’t have acorns yet— the fruits that Red Oaks usually bore, but that didn’t stop the birds from settling on its tender branches, weighing them down heavily. The rest shuffled through its leaves and branches, and not finding any food, contented themselves with trying to gorge on the acorns of the bigger Red Oaks.
The young tree glanced at the older Oak that was trying to fight them off, trying to toss its branches about a bit. But the stubborn pigeons stayed on, feasting on its acorns and nestling in great numbers on its branches, all the while cooing and pecking and tittering away. Elsewhere, they heard a loud crack, the sound of a branch breaking due to the weight of the birds. A while later, when they had had their fill— or rather, when they’d eaten up everything they could find, the pigeons flew away, again a hurricane in the distant horizon. “Passenger pigeons!” the older Red Oak said in disgust.
“Do you see what they do now? They lay the Red Oak trees bare with their appetite. They are too many, and too greedy! Our acorns carrying our seeds for the next generation of Red Oak trees, all eaten up by those gluttons!” Some of the other Red Oak trees murmured their agreement. The young Red Oak looked up at the White Oak trees. They were untouched. “Why don’t they forage in the White Oaks for food?” it asked. “The White Oaks have acorns that germinate during autumn, and the pigeons breed then”, said the older one. “They are safe for now. But this is what goes wrong for us Red Oaks. And just look at the amount of droppings on the forest floor! If a fire breaks out, we’re done for!”
“Why, what about the White oaks?” said the young Red Oak. “Won’t they get hurt too, in a forest fire?” “They’re resistant to fire”, said the older Red oak. “Aren’t these the birds that I heard, are used by humans to carry messages?” said the little Red Oak, trying to recollect what he had overheard somewhere from someone. “Oh, you’re getting confused!” said the older Oak, “those are carrier pigeons, or messenger pigeons. Those ones can find their way back home alright. Much more sensible. And intelligent. Not crazy like these ones. Now you’ll see the native Red Indians coming to kill some of these silly birds sometime soon.
Sometimes I wonder if they are as crazy as the birds. They hunt the birds for the meat, then offer the meat to their deity, and then there’s this elaborate ritual, it’s quite funny actually—” But before they could say anything more, the sound of a gunshot rang through the forest. “What was that?” asked the little Red Oak, but it couldn’t ask anymore as several gunshots were fired into the stillness of the forest, and the wild pandemonium caused by fluttering wings and bird squeals reached them. “Looks like it’s the White people who’ve moved in around here newly— they have something that’s used to fire at the birds. All you have to do is, point it upwards and press something, the birds are so many that atleast one will be hit and killed”, muttered the older Oak tree. “I hope they finish them all”, it added, under its breath.
In the following days and months, the little Red Oak tree grew taller and stronger, and as it did, it started noticing that the Passenger pigeons were no longer coming in flocks. Their number had come down drastically, while the number of hunters had gone up. The older Oak tree and the other Oaks that stood some way away in the distance were overjoyed by this development. Several new Red Oaks were taking root in the forest, thanks to the acorns being left alone by the dwindling number of Passenger pigeons.
Only the little Red Oak tree missed them bit. It had not seen enough of them, and it seemed like it had taken root at the dawn of a new era with the disappearance of the Passenger pigeons. It grew to be one of the biggest Red Oaks in the region, with numerous other Red Oaks all around, having managed to outnumber the White Oaks after all!
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
“Pigeon racing” may conjure images of robust, healthy birds zipping across finish lines in quick succession. But what it really means is releasing strategically bred pigeons far, sometimes hundreds of miles from their homes, to see which one makes it back the fastest.
Many of them don’t make it back at all.
The news that three Northwest Side aldermen are trying to legalize pigeon racing as a sport is alarming to the bird enthusiast community and should be to the entire city.
Here’s what those aldermen may not know: Racing pigeons are domestically raised birds that don’t have the survival skills to make it in the wild. The pigeons we see on the street were raised by their parents to survive in an urban setting. But when humans selectively breed birds and feed them from hatching, they don’t develop the scrappy resourcefulness that wild pigeons have.
They don’t know how to find food or avoid predators, and they haven’t been produced by natural selection, but rather by selection by humans for certain qualities.
An investigation by PETA released in 2012 found that more than 60 percent of racing pigeons don’t make it back to their home lofts.
And the birds that don’t perform to the standard of their pigeon-racing owners are subject to abandonment and culling, the killing of weak or undesirable specimens in a group of animals.
The aldermen stipulate that standards will be enforced regarding the conditions in which the racing birds are kept, the containers that feed will be stored in and the registration of individual birds. But none of this regulation will protect the birds, at all, once the race begins. PETA lists common methods of culling as suffocation, drowning, decapitation, neck-breaking, and gassing. If pigeon racing is legalized in Chicago, will there be regulations in place for which manners of culling birds are considered humane?
And while the aldermen say that the ban will only be lifted for members of pigeon racing organizations in good standing, how beneficial is it to be in good standing with an organization wherein culling and abandonment are commonplace?
When I gave word to Annette Prince, the director of the bird rescue organization Chicago Bird Collision Monitors about the potential legalization, she said the organization responds to hundreds of calls every year for banded pigeons and doves that have been attacked by predators, injured, abandoned and starved.
Those birds need rescue and care. Homes and medical treatment need to be provided for endless numbers of rescued racing pigeons because, in most cases, owners do not want the lost birds back.
Pigeon racing, legal in many U.S. cities, is already affecting local bird rescue organizations even before the city considers legalizing it.
In November of 2017, as previously reported by the Sun-Times, Chicago Bird Collision Monitors rescued about 75 of more than 100 banded pigeons dumped in a parking lot in Ravenswood. The rest succumbed to predator attacks or were found frozen to death. Those that lived had to be treated for avian pox, likely a result of having been kept in poor conditions before they were dumped. It was a rescue effort that spanned more than a week and involved multiple wildlife rescue agencies and many volunteers who came out in the cold to catch the birds with boxes, with nets, and with our hands.
If the city legalizes pigeon racing, it will be this organization and other bird advocacy groups that will be called upon to capture, treat and place the birds after they’re found emaciated and bleeding — at the expense of the organizations. Their resources are already stretched thin. And the birds that are rescued will be the lucky ones — many more won’t have a chance.
Birds have an internal navigation system that’s still largely a mystery to us. Pigeons are intelligent birds that can recognize individual human faces. Domestically raised pigeons are affectionate companion animals and rewarding pets, not objects to be used for sport and then dumped like garbage.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Another great classic has found its way onto my TV, and as I watched “On the Waterfront” I was reminded once again why all of these movies made their mark. Like classic rock, they have stood out as the terrible or forgettable films of the day fell to the wayside, and these stood the test of time. I watch them as a regular audience member, not a studious purveyor of classical work, not a film critic with notes in hand, searching for faults or reasons for me to whine about modern films compared to older ones. And still, these movies are classics for a reason, and watching them reminds me of why they have survived all these years. They’re just straight up good — so before I get into my literary exploration of this film (and others to come), know that I just plain old enjoy them too.
“On the Waterfront” follows Terry Mallow (played by Marlon Brando), a talented ex-prize fighter who works on the docks alongside a slew of poverty-stricken workers struggling to make ends meet. Terry is one of many thugs who work for the ruthless union boss, Johnny Friendly (played by Lee J. Cobb) They are all part of killing a would-be whistleblower who tried to speak out against the brutally enforced corruption in the upper echelons of the union. However, the sister of the murdered man catches Terry’s eye, and the two of them fall into a complicated romance that pulls him between two worlds — one of empathy and another of brutality. With the help of a local priest, some of the union members get in their heads to stand up against Friendly, and Terry doesn’t know where he ought to stand.
For the duration of the film, Terry spends much of his free time tending to pigeons on the roof of his impoverished apartment complex. He used to be a tenacious prize-fighter, deadly in the ring, but Friendly had him lose a few fights on purpose to win some bets, and that lost him his chance at the big leagues — the softer side of him finds solace in tending to the delicate birds on his rooftop. His love interest, Edie Doyle (played by Eva Marie Saint), has joined him and is watching him with longing eyes, at the rough man takes care of animals with great care and affection.
He begins to speak of hawks and pigeons, and how he has to protect the pigeons from the hawks who come from bigger, more expensive (and taller) buildings. If he doesn’t, they’ll swoop down and eat the pigeons alive.
This is quite obviously a metaphor for the powerful, predatorial union bosses taking advantage of the dock workers. The “pigeons and hawks” motif is referenced several times in the film, and the obvious question (as I outlined before) is where Terry stands. Does he stand with the pigeons, who get mauled and eaten alive but with their souls intact? Or does he stand with the hawks, who survive but at the cost of their own consciences?
Everyone is worrying about what side they are on, or which identity they belong to. Terry wrestles with this for the whole film — following his conscience only ever got him hurt, but following men like Johnny Friendly only ever hurt the ones around him. His lover wants him to stand up to them, but when that doesn’t work she wants him to run away with her. His own brother wants him to survive and look out for himself, and to work his way up the ranks of the union/gang.
In a world like that, you’re either predator or you’re prey.
Terry winds up ditching the whole metaphor entirely. After all his inner turmoil and outer conflicts, it’s as if he says, “You know? Screw all these categories and people trying to tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m not a hawk, I’m not a pigeon — I’m a man. And a man does what he’s gotta do.”
He ditches the philosophy of the pigeons; he ditches the philosophy of the hawks. He uses the strength of his hawk-like character, the perseverance and the physical brute force of a prize-fighter who grew up in poverty, as well as the empathy and compassion of the pigeons. Terry needed the encouragement of the good woman and he needed the inspiring words of the priest; he also needed his indomitable spirit and strength that he gained from the a life of hardship on the streets — at the end of the day, he needed to soften his heart and harden it at the same time in order to do what is right.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
On Saturday, the first yearling pigeon races of the 2018 season took place from Vrede (135km) and Paul Roux (180km). 78 Ladysmith pigeons were sent to Vrede and 140 to Paul Roux.
The first Vrede pigeon was clocked by Paul Manuel at 10:01, 17 minutes ahead of the second pigeon clocked by Lappies from Labusch Lofts. The pigeons from Paul Roux arrived at 9:50, but were still very energetic.
Most people struggled to get their pigeons in because they were flying around at home.
Jimmy Hanlon clocked the winning pigeon, beating Tiekie Crouse by 37 seconds into second place.
The winning pigeon from Vrede flew an average speed of 66km/h and from Paul Roux, the average speed was 99km/h.
The full results are as follows:
Vrede: Paul Manuel 1,21; Labusch Lofts (Lappies) 2,7,8,12,16,17,19,20,24,26; Tiekie Crouse 3,4,6,9,10,18,23,27; Mark Clayton 5,11,13,14,15,22,25.
Paul Roux: Jimmy Hanlon 1,11; Tiekie Crouse 2,9,18,28,29; Lewis Hay 3,4,5,6,7,8,14,21,24,25,26,27; Mark Clayton 10,12,13,20,23,30; Labusch Lofts (Lappies) 15,16,17; Imraan Kader 19; Paul Manuel 22.
The previous weekend, Tiekie Crouse won the KZN race from Middelburg by five minutes. Congratulations to him.
The open series continues this weekend, with races from Middelburg and Dealesville.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
While many Chicagoans might think pigeon racing is rushing to their bedroom windows at 4:30 a.m. to chase away the birds and their infernal cooing, aldermen have introduced a proposal to bring back the sport of racing homing pigeons.
It’s a pastime beloved by many people of Polish descent, so Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, took a plan to the City Council this week to legalize it in the city. It was banned more than a decade ago.
“Pigeon racing is a sport that receives no attention in the United States but is deeply loved in Poland,” Villegas said in a statement. “A number of residents in my ward have brought that love to their new country and would like to bring the sport to Chicago.”
Villegas’ proposal says the pigeons must be kept in enclosures “except for limited periods necessary for exercise, training and competition” between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. and “such pigeons shall not be released for flying which have been fed within the previous four hours.”
The ordinance would let breeders of “pedigreed rock doves” keep the birds at their homes in lofts “that are inspected and certified on a regular basis to ensure the birds are kept in clean, sanitary and healthy conditions.”
The City Council outlawed homing pigeons in residential areas in 2004 after people living near residents who kept the birds complained about getting “splattered” when they tried to hang out laundry or sunbathe. At the time, pigeon supporters said their pets are unfairly derided as “rats with wings.”
Pigeon fans then said aldermen and other critics were erroneously confusing their birds, which are registered and vaccinated, with common street pigeons that can transmit diseases.
Members of Chicago racing clubs went to federal court, but in 2005 the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge upheld an earlier district court ruling that found the city was within its rights to ban racing pigeons as pets.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Residents in a Victorian building in south west London are being ‘cooped’ up in the sweltering heat, because pigeons keep invading their homes. They’ve been warned not to open their windows in a desperate bid to keep the birds out. One resident at the block of four flats in Wandsworth said she found a pigeon sat on her hob when she went to make a cup of tea. Other residents have reported pigeons watching them in the bathroom and pecking at windows to be let in. HEY! (Picture: SWNS) One resident said: ‘I don’t know what’s gone on in our building in the past, but these birds definitely have an uncanny interest in it. What makes things stranger is that you never see any other birds in the area.’ A 24-year-old court clerk who lives in the block said she found a pigeon in her kitchen this morning. ‘As I walked into the kitchen, I couldn’t believe my eyes – this massive fat pigeon was sat right on the middle of my hob. I could see the bird eyeing me up through the glass panes in the door.’ The pigeon only left when her boyfriend came to shoo it away with a broom. ‘There’s another pigeon too that keeps sitting on the windowsill in our bathroom and stares at me when I’m in the shower. It’s really unnerving – if I hang a towel over the window, it just pecks the glass. I’m terrified it’s going to break in one day,’ she added. One resident found a pigeon sitting on her hob (Picture: SWNS) The situation seems to have now reached breaking-point as a sign has been affixed to the communal notice board warning residents not to open the windows. A 27-year-old, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘They’re getting really bold at the moment. ‘One nearly got in yesterday, but I managed to shoo it just in time. It’s so hot, and it would be great to have the windows wide open. But the pigeons are keeping us cooped up in here.’ A sign has been fixed to the communal notice board warning residents not to open the windows (Picture: SWNS) One of the pigeons made its way inside the building (Picture: SWNS) In a video taken by the resident, another pigeon can be seen staring through the bathroom window. He said: ‘I noticed the pigeon while I was brushing my teeth. It was probably there for a full minute in total. I know this sounds silly, but I found it really arrogant.’ His flatmate added: ‘It’s a power struggle. I really do not like them, and the issue is that they defecate everywhere which is really an unsanitary way to live.’ Wandsworth Council, who are in charge of pest control in the area, have been approached for a comment.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
On Saturday 14 July, the Cumbrian Region of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association will be commemorating the centenary of World War 1 with an open race from Ypres in Belgium.
Pigeon fanciers within the Cumbrian region want to recognise the sacrifice that the armed forces took in the First World War and the bravery of the homing pigeons involved.
Carrier pigeons played a vital part in World War One acting as military messengers with their homing ability and speed. Over 100,000 pigeons were used in the war with a success rate of 95% in delivering their messages.
Pigeons from the Royal Loft were also used as carrier pigeons in both World Wars. 32 pigeons were presented with the Dickin Medal including Royal Blue from the Sandringham Estate who was recognised for gallantry in its role of reporting a lost aircraft in 1940.
The pigeons involved in the race will fly from Ypres back to their individual lofts located in Cumbria and the surrounding areas. The journey by car is 444.5 miles and would take over 8 and a half hours – but these incredible birds can travel at speeds of 70 mph and are estimated to complete the race within 5-6 hours.
Leslie Blacklock, Secretary of the Cumbria Region for the Royal Pigeon Racing Association comments: “The Ypres open race is a great opportunity for pigeon fanciers within the Cumbrian region to commemorate 100 years since the end of WWI. Pigeons played such vital role in both World Wars and it seems only natural to celebrate their bravery with this race.”
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
It may not seem like one of life’s great mysteries, but a quick internet search reveals that people from across the world – London to Hong Kong, Cape Town to Buenos Aires – are asking this same question: for all the pigeons out there in our cities, where are all the dead ones? Alas they’re not pondering the presence of pigeon heaven, but rather, where are all the bodies?
Pigeons are as ubiquitous in the world’s cities as bad traffic, buskers, and late-night takeaways. London alone is estimated to contain more than a million pigeons, inhabiting the many parks and gardens that crisscross its 1,000 square miles. Given these vast numbers – and the fact that an urban pigeon seldom lives for more than three or four years – it’s a wonder why they are not strewn across city streets.
There are several possible reasons for this. First, pigeons are just one part of a wide array of creatures to have adopted our cities as their home. Foxes, rats, gulls, crows and ravens all do a wonderful job of cleaning up any carrion they come across, including deceased pigeons. These species perform inestimable services to the urban ecosystem, reducing human exposure to rotting matter and helping cut the transmission of infectious diseases.
Alongside these native janitors, domestic cats are equally happy to take care of a dead or injured pigeon. It is estimated that there are half a million cats living in London alone – roughly two pigeons per cat – and if you’re “lucky” they might bring one home as a present. Whether a resident moggy or some other carnivore, this network of surreptitious street cleaners will usually whisk away any pigeon corpses long before they’re seen by human eyes.
High-rise hideaways
Most pigeons, however, don’t simply drop dead on the ground. To understand where pigeons themselves are likely to go when feeling vulnerable or unwell, we need to delve into their origins. The pigeons we see in cities are domestic pigeons who have undergone some serious “rewilding”. They were originally bred as homing pigeons, trained birds who relayed important messages over large distances long before telephones. These pigeons even won prestigious medals in both world wars.
Going back further, the original homing pigeons were bred centuries ago from wild rock doves, a species which inhabits sea cliffs and coastal caves. Cities, with their high-rise buildings and elevated ledges, provide ideal nest sites for feral pigeons, and create an environment reminiscent of their ancestral homes. This background means that, when sick or injured, pigeons instinctively retreat to dark, remote places – ventilation systems, attics, building ledges – hoping to remain out of reach and unnoticed by predators. The predators don’t see them, but neither do we: often when pigeons expire, they are in hiding.
Gone before their time
But what actually causes a pigeon to die? As they get older, pigeons become more susceptible to disease, and often become slower to react to oncoming predators. It is well-established that when a predator attacks a flock of birds, slower individuals can become isolated from the group, making them easy prey. Dying of old age is not a luxury afforded to most pigeons: as soon as they shows signs of slowness or sickness, many are snapped up by peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, or other predators.
One slightly macabre alternative that occurs in big cities, involves the netting that often hangs around buildings. Birds can easily fly into it and become entangled: not just old or sick pigeons, but any bird unfortunate enough not to notice it. Netting is usually high above the ground, so after some fruitless struggling dead pigeons usually hang there, away from the scavengers below.
Whether snatched midair by birds of prey, entangled by man made obstacles or alone in a remote corner of a skyscraper’s roof garden, there are many ways that pigeons pass on from this world. But they all take place within an internal urban ecosystem, that, for the most part, is hidden from our sight.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
After a pigeon, the certified emotional support animal for a Texas woman with autism, flew away, the two were reunited, thanks to a good Samaritan.
Ash Holbrook, the pigeon’s owner, broke down when her best friend and support animal Geraldine was returned to her Monday night.
Geraldine, who wears a pink diaper, got loose while Holbrook and her mother were hooking up a trailer at a horse derby in Oklahoma City.
The family says the pigeon normally comes right back when they let her out. However, they think the 4-hour car ride from her home in Sherman, TX, confused her, according to KFOR.
Instead of returning, Geraldine flew away.
“It was just so weird,” Holbrook told KFOR. “She got up really high and flew around and then took off. It was so weird.”
Holbrook, whom KFOR reports was diagnosed with autism later in life, and her family were worried sick about Geraldine because she wouldn’t know her surroundings in Oklahoma City.
But good Samaritan Delores Chavez spotted the pigeon – thanks to her pink diaper – and returned her to the family.
Holbrook and Geraldine normally spend every waking moment together, according to KFOR. The woman raised the bird, who was badly injured when she received her last year from a veterinarian in Oklahoma City.
Holbrook told KFOR the therapy animal brings her peace and makes her “feel OK and not alone.”
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Delhi woke to some good news last week. The city’s stately, two-storeyed Town Hall of 1863 vintage was dying a slow death, due to callous use by municipal officials from Independence up to 2009. Its museum and library too must be in their last throes, if rodents, seepage, white ants and pigeons have left any book or artifact intact at all. Still, and after nine more years of dithering, it’s final — the august building will soon be leased out to bidders for a heritage hotel.
One dismaying thought persists. What if the government “does an Air India” on the Town Hall by retaining a stranglehold through the hobby interior designer-wife of an official or someone else it wants to “favour” with a paid consultancy? Instead of leaving it to professional architects endowed with sense and sensibility — two qualities that no demolition-happy Indian government at any level — national, state or local — has ever displayed about heritage? Don’t buy my cynicism. Drop in on any government office housed in an old building anywhere in the country.
Like the stately Jaisalmer House in New Delhi, where officials of a ministry huddle in tacky Formica cubicles, inside what used to be expansive living quarters. Encircling them like the grim chorus of a Greek tragedy are steel almirahs; above them, a bewildering jungle of electric wires on which colonies of pigeons roost, frequently raining droppings and feathers down upon classified documents. Pan-chewers have left trademark splatter along the wide corridors that encircle an inner courtyard. (So great is the resemblance to a Dickensian warehouse that the ministry recently invited tenders from pest control companies to decimate the ancient building’s other unwelcome residents: swarms of rats.)
Or check out the debate and the mystical secrecy surrounding the design of an undoubtedly-needed war memorial at India Gate. The question on whether the memorial will mar the grand vistas and perfect symmetry of the India Gate hexagon and Rajpath remains unanswered. Or visit the National Museum, which houses some of India’s greatest and most awe-inspiring antiquities but also the surliest and most ignorant front office staff, who make it obvious just how much they hate being bothered by visitors.
“The National Museum is a treasure house of wondrous pieces. Why, then, do I feel such reluctance and depression when I go there?” asks Dastkar chairperson Laila Tyabji. The country’s top crafts activist also holds government ministries with “no eye for its contents, potential or the most basic aesthetics” responsible for its sorry state. “You pass a marvellous, medieval Vishnu used as a dumping ground for backpacks! On your right is a that stunning, towering rath, obscured in a dusty, plexiglass, kennel-like structure,” Ms Tyabji fumes. She also points to an astounding omission on the museum’s website — that there’s no mention of the American architect who was awarded the Padma Bhushan for designing the magnificent building.
To the rest of the country, Delhi is spoilt, Delhi is privileged. And there is some truth to that grumble. Delhi, at least, has plenty of heritage warriors who put frequent and welcome spokes into government wheels the minute they sense impending doom for old monuments. But whether in the capital or elsewhere in India, and depending on the nationality and/or religion of the long-gone patron-builder of a given monument, the chief reasons for neglect are either populist politics or profits.
Earlier this year, dismayed Kolkatans watched the Kenilworth Hotel — or the Purdy Mansion — being brought down. One of Kolkata’s oldest establishments of the British colonial era, the Kenilworth’s spacious suites were legendary and it remained the favourite watering hole of intellectuals and writers for generations. In 2009, the hotel was reportedly listed in the Grade IIA category on the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s list of heritage buildings. But earlier this year, it was stealthily scaled down to Grade III, that is, the category of old buildings that are allowed to fall. A 35-storey residential behemoth will now arise on the shards of invaluable history.
Reports suggest that there were 823 heritage structures still standing in Bengaluru in 1985. Since then, 469 of them, including the Murphy Town Library (for an “Indira Canteen”) and more recently, Lalbagh’s Krumbiegel Hall have been turned into rubble and venues for restaurants, malls and high-end apartments. The Moore Market was charred in a fire and many other Chennai landmarks were demolished. Still, the heritage-rich southern city scores some points for recently announcing its willingness to restore some of the most remarkable British-era college buildings.
But the more things change, the more they remain the same. Days after the Delhi Town Hall announcement came another, which brought all hopes of reviving both aesthetics and Delhi’s poisonous air crashing to earth again. All illegal street-side stalls, additional floors and makeshift parking lots at some busy Delhi markets (where every inch of pavement space is occupied by hawkers and vehicles) are going to be “regularised”. The municipality is obviously unconcerned by small piffles like air pollution, fire escapes and the space to walk for the city’s residents. Remember: both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are up in the next two years. What better time for a few sops?
If there are two things that are definitely NOT on the curriculum of either politicians’ nurseries or the celebrated IAS training institute in Mussoorie, they are city planning and the art of conserving ancient architecture, whether built by the “good guys” or “bad eggs”.
What one architect-writer famously described as Gujarati-Gothic and Punjabi Baroque dominate our city landscapes today. Curlicews and turrets, heat-producing construction material and reflector glass highly unsuited to tropical climates are what we will leave behind. For future generations to gasp at and wonder — is this the same nation and the same people that built Ajanta? Ellora? The Taj Mahal? Or even the iconic Hall of Nations at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, which even though of 1970s’ vintage and approved by a former PM-patron herself, was not spared the bulldozers’ either?
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Five years ago. a crow fell into the compound of B K Ajay Kumar Jain’s house. It lay there injured, helpless and terrified. Ajay who saw it was in a flap. For he didn’t know what to do. He wandered from pillar to post of a pet hospital and a veterinary hospital to get the injured crow treated. He realised that there were no good facilities to treat injured birds, and this gave him the idea to start a bird hospital.
His Pragathi Bird Charitable Hospital and Research Centre at Vidyaranyapuram has rescued and treated more than 1,250 birds. So far, he has rescued hundreds of birds by climbing buildings and trees, and crawling through drainage.
The 36-year-old runs this unique hospital that has an ICU and ambulance only for birds. The centre is a wing of NGO Pragathi Prathistan founded by Ajay. He did not know how to treat his winged rescues and he took lessons in first aid from veterinary specialist Dr Madan at Leela Veterinary Hospital. He says, “By keenly observing him for several months, I understood the behaviour of birds and learnt how to treat them.”
They have rescued several species including humming bird, wood peckers, pigeons, eagle, house swift, common mynah, owl, crow, bat, love birds, barbet, green tailed barker bird, brahminy kite, sparrows and parrots. A month ago, Ajay had treated more than 64 pelicans from Brindavan Gardens, after a huge tree was uprooted in heavy rains. The centre has also rescued and treated tortoises, mongooses, cats and dogs.
Once a bird is brought to the centre, they investigate the nature of the injury or illness. If the wounds are minor, they are treated at the centre. If they require a surgery, they are taken to Leela Veterinary Hospital; till date, 13 major surgeries have been done. After the birds recover, they are set free.
All expenses are borne by him and, for surgeries, he gets help from family members. He is the son of B A Kailash Chand Jain, veteran politician, Gandhian and president of Jain Sangha in Mysuru, and K Pista Kumari Bohra, social worker and national vice president of All India Jain Conference. He has three elder brothers and a younger sister who was ordained a Jain Sadhvi four years ago.He says, “People ask me why I waste my time and money on birds. I try to make them understand why we must save birds and the satisfaction we get from it, but they rarely get it”.
The centre, meanwhile, has made a mark. He says, “Initially, I got only one or two calls a month. Today, we receive two to three calls every day on an average. Most people call in to report about eagles in summer and pigeons in monsoon. Our 40 volunteers respond immediately.”
Ajay adds, “Most birds are injured from electrocution and accidents rise around Deepavali, when rockets hit them, and summer, when eagles fall to the ground from dehydration.”
People vouch for Ajay’s dedication. A resident of KRS Road, Savithri Mahendra, says, “We gave a call to him at 4.30 am one day, when we spotted injured birds caught in an uprooted tree. He rushed to the spot, climbed the tree and rescued them.”
Dr Srisha Bhat, adventure sports coordinator, says, “Many people still believe that touching an owl or a crow brings bad luck. If they do come into contact with these birds, they have a bath or do special pujas. But Ajay helps all birds without discrimination or hesitation.” Impressed by his effort, Srisha volunteers with the centre.Ventriloquist and magician Suma Rajkumar too became a volunteer with Pragathi Prathistan. “When we set the recovered birds free, it gives us great joy,” she says.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
FALLING roof tiles in SK Seri Kepong in Kuala Lumpur are putting pupils and staff at risk.
The school’s roof is in a such a bad state that the top floor, which has 10 classrooms, has not been used for the past two years because of leakage problem.
A check by StarMetro found the ceiling at the top floor had water marks and gaping holes where pigeons could be seen taking shelter.
The floor was dirty and filled with dust as well as bird droppings.
The library that was there has been relocated to a lower floor.
Parts of the school’s ground floor were also cordoned off to avoid accidents involving falling tiles, especially when it was windy or raining.
SK Seri Kepong headmaster Rosman Matnoor said school prefects were stationed near the prohibited sites during recess to ensure no pupils crossed into the dangerous area.
“I was posted to this school in June last year, which is when I came to know about the problem. “I raised the matter verbally with Kuala Lumpur Education Department and formally lodged a complaint in May after a thunderstorm.
“There are 214 pupils in this school that comprises preschool, primary and special education classes.
“We have enough classrooms despite the top floor being cordoned off, but this problem is a hazard and waste of space.
“The extra classrooms can be used by uniformed clubs for co-curricular activities,” he said during a meeting with Education officers and Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng to address the issue.
The department’s civil engineer Wan Norzaimi Mat said the Kuala Lumpur Education Department received a complaint on May 25 and had applied for an allocation to carry out repair works.
“We have been doing periodic maintenance on the roof over the years but because the building is in an area prone to crosswinds, the roof tiles are susceptible to being ripped off by strong winds.
“We have to find a better solution,” he said.
Lim said he would send a contractor to assess what immediate repair works could be done to avoid an unfortunate incident.
“I will apply for the RM20,000 emergency allocation granted to MPs to fund these repairs while waiting for the Education Ministry to act upon the complaint,” he said.
Parent-Teacher Association chairman Tan Chong Meng said he hoped the repair works would be carried out as soon as possible and the problem would be settled for good.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
It may sound like the product of an over-imaginative mind, but Operation Columba, a clandestine British bid to gain intelligence from occupied areas, was very real.
Between 1941 and 1944, around 16,000 avian agents, hidden in canisters with little parachutes attached, fell to the ground in rural France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The plucky pigeons sparked hundreds of tiny acts of resistance: villagers sending back messages, tied to the legs of the birds.
One group of villagers, led by a local priest, provided intelligence so valuable it was shown to Winston Churchill — but their brave defiance ultimately led them to a gruesome death.
Gordon Corera, an author and the BBC’s security correspondent, has pieced together details of that group, known by the codename Leopold Vindictive.
“I never thought I’d be writing about pigeons,” he laughs.
He began his research a few years ago after coming across a news story about the discovery of a dead pigeon’s leg in a chimney in Surrey, in South East England.
“I kid you not,” he says.
“The dead pigeon’s leg had a message attached to it which appeared to come from World War II. I found it bizarre and fascinating.”
The message was a series of random letters — a code not even the country’s best minds could crack.
So, Corera began a quest to unravel the mysterious message himself.
It took him to the National Archives, where he found many files on the little-known Secret Pigeon Service.
They were mostly boring — like where to store bird feed — but one, which had only just been declassified, stood out.
“It was called Columba. It was a War Office file from a [section] of military intelligence I’d never heard of — MI14(d). I mean we’ve all heard of MI5, but MI14(d)?” he says.
“Even more bizarrely, it had a picture of a pigeon, and then a cartoon of Hitler lying on his back, as if the pigeon had just done its business on Hitler, causing him to fall over.
“I’d never seen a wartime file with such an almost absurdly comic cover to it.”
Message 37
Inside the file was a rich trove of messages sent from occupied Europe via homing pigeon.
“They were from ordinary people, who’d picked up a pigeon in a field [and responded to] a questionnaire: ‘What do you see in your local area? Are there any Nazi troop movements? What’s morale like?'” Corera says.
Around 1,000 messages came back, but one was different.
Message 37 looked like a work of art, with detailed, colourful maps and writing too small to read with the naked eye.
It had been rolled up tightly into the size of a postage stamp so it could fit back into the cannister — and it produced 12 pages of raw intelligence.
“You can see in the files the British admiralty saying, ‘We weren’t sure about these pigeons, but this is real intelligence’,” Corera says.
“They showed it to Churchill, [I think because] it embodied the spirit of resistance… the idea that there were people out there in occupied Europe who wanted to resist, who wanted to work with Britain, who were willing to take huge risks.”
The Leopold Vindictive
Corera began to wonder about the people behind the message.
“The file had this codename, Leopold Vindictive, but it didn’t have their real names. I became slightly obsessed with trying to find out who they were,” he says.
“I knew they were Belgian villagers, so I started searching Belgian historical records and archives.”
The trail eventually led to Jozef Raskin, a Catholic priest who lived near the city of Bruges and was the leader of the resistance group.
That then led him to Raskin’s niece, Brigitte, and together they began to piece together his life story.
“He was a dedicated patriot. He wasn’t a normal priest, I think it’s worth saying,” Corera says.
“In the First World War, because he was quite an artist, he’d been involved in drawing maps of German positions in the trenches. So he already had a bit of a feel for military intelligence.
“He’d gone to China in between the wars as a missionary, and he’d learnt calligraphy, and how to write, that gave him the ability to write those tiny letters.
“And he also had a real network of friends across the country, because he went as a travelling preacher raising funds for the missionary organisation he worked for.”
The Leopold Vindictive was named for two of Raskin’s contacts: Belgium’s King Leopold, for whom Raskin had served as a chaplain, and a British admiral named Roger Keyes, whose ship was the Vindictive.
“He actually uses the admiral as a reference in the pigeon [message], and says ‘if you want to know who I am, contact the admiral. I was with him in 1940’.
“That’s one of the reasons they took the information so seriously.”
The group provided intelligence about troop movements, the results of bombing raids and specific information about a particular chateau the Germans were using as a base for their marine forces.
The two sides desperately tried to stay in touch and keep the information flowing.
“They tried to drop more pigeons, but the pigeons are hard to drop in a precise location, and they kept missing,” Corera says.
‘A gruesome, awful end’
Eventually Britain sent two MI6 agents to Belgium. Their mission included making contact with the Leopold Vindictive.
But by this stage Nazis had infiltrated parts of the resistance network, and they were closing in fast.
“I’m afraid that was the reality of wartime — the risks for these resistance groups, most would not survive,” Corera says.
“Surviving even for a year or two would be the exception, rather than the rule.”
Raskin was arrested and taken to Germany, where he was beheaded at a prison site. Two other members of his group were also killed.
“I’m afraid it was only discovered by their families after the war that they were executed there. It’s a gruesome, awful end,” Corera says.
“You want a happy ending to these stories, and you want to be able to say that it all worked. In this case the intelligence operation succeeded for a while, but it had its limits.”
But he thinks Raskin and others like him earned themselves everlasting respect.
“They do embody a spirit of taking those risks… for what they believed — their patriotism for their country, their desire to resist tyranny, in Raskin’s case his faith in God,” Corera says.
“That was a risk they understood and they paid a terrible price for it.”
And for the hundreds of other ordinary villagers who wrote a message on rice paper and sent it via pigeon, there was a powerful symbolism at play.
“They would watch them fly away, hopefully back to Britain,” Corera says.
“For them it was a symbol of hope and liberation. To liberate that pigeon was also emotionally very powerful for them, this idea of flying away and the hope that eventually their country could be free.”
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
A mall in California hired Remmy — a Harris’ hawk — two years ago to hunt down uninvited pigeons.
The renovation of the Broadway Plaza mall in Walnut Creek, Calif., attracted dozens of pigeons.
“We had a major pigeon problem and were unsure of the best way to get it under control,” said Shelly Dress, senior manager of property management at the mall.
So Dress turned to Hawk Pros, a company that uses falcons to get rid of pest birds.
The practice helps avoid using chemicals and only scares away the targets, letting them live.
“A scared pigeon is an educated pigeon,” said Remmy’s handler, Bridget Maguire-Colton. “That pigeon will return to its flock and let the other birds know there’s a hawk here who means business. Pigeons are smart birds — they will remember where the hawk is and will seek out another venue for shelter, water and food.”
Separately, a flight attendant for a Chinese airline pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle almost two dozen spotted and box turtles from Los Angeles to China.
Hauqian Qu entered his guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy yesterday, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Does a show that consists of LED-lit flocks of pigeons flying through the sky over a dilapidated former golf course in Thamesmead technically count as theatre? Dunno, don’t care, but I’m very happy I saw US artist Duke Riley’s beyond-sublime ‘Fly By Night’ (co-produced by LIFT, GDIF and 14-18 NOW).
At a signal from Riley and his assistants, the approximately 1,500 pigeons surge out of their illuminated coop, and wheel about the skies in tight, agile formations. As night descends, the birds cease to be discernible, with only the clear LEDs they wear around their legs visible. They look like clouds of shooting stars, like swarming constellations, like some sort of strange and wondrous celestial portent. It is really, really fucking cool.
‘Fly By Night’ is also notionally a commemoration of the messenger pigeons that were key to the British war effort a century ago. This doesn’t necessarily come across particularly obviously, but it’s not an unwelcome idea – it’s perhaps more accurate to call this a suggested train of thought rather than an actual message.
For me, the greater depth to the show was in how it functions as a commune with nature and the stark, hard landscape of Thamesmead. Not the hippest district in London by a long shot, on a perfectly clear solstice night it felt genuinely magical: a perfect, fading primrose-and-pale-cornflower sky chased with the crisp silhouettes of flying birds, the only noise the beat of wings and the odd, mournful whistle from Ellis and his team. In an unfamiliar, industrialised landscape that is, conversely, far closer to the countryside than most Londoners tend to get, it all just felt pretty transcendent, like the glowing birds were somehow a natural manifestation of the landscape, rather than outsiders here to perform a show.
You could argue over whether it ‘means anything’ that the pigeons come home. But you’re almost certainly never going to see a spectacle quite like it again. There are two performances left, and I would seriously urge you to try and make one.
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — With his auburn feathers, white tail and three-foot wingspan, Remmy, a Harris’s hawk, makes for an impressive — and incongruous — sight at an upscale outdoor shopping mall anchored by Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.
But he’s supposed to be there. He has a job to do.
Remmy was hired two years ago by Broadway Plaza after an extensive renovation that added 20 new stores, restaurants, revamped walkways and a two-story parking garage. Unfortunately, the transformed mall attracted not only new customers but also dozens of pigeons, which nested in garage rafters, scavenged for food and splattered the walkways with corrosive and bacteria-infused droppings.
“We had a major pigeon problem and were unsure of the best way to get it under control,” says Shelly Dress, senior manager of property management at the mall.
That’s where Remmy came in. After rejecting other options, such as fabric netting that would prevent pigeon nesting in certain spots, Dress turned to the Hawk Pros, a company based in Southern California that uses falconry to eradicate pest birds. At any given time, the firm has five to 10 birds of prey on assignment at sites such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the U.S. Bank Tower, also in L.A.
Remmy and his colleagues are part of a growing trend of using raptors to intimidate nuisance birds such as pigeons and seagulls, a practice that avoids the use of chemicals and — unlike in the ancient hunting sport of falconry — scares targets but lets them live. Some U.S. farmers deploy them to protect crops. Harris’s hawks patrol the grass courts at Wimbledon and Trafalgar Square in London. Falcons haze pigeons and crows at resorts in Dubai.
Since Remmy and his owner and handler, Bridget Maguire-Colton, have been coming to Broadway Plaza on a regular basis, the pigeon population has dropped from a few dozen to just a few, most of them in pockets of the garage. Dress initially hired the Hawk Pros for 12 days a month, Dress said, but Remmy was so effective that he now needs to stop by the mall only eight days a month, for three hours at a time, to ensure that the pigeons stay away.
With super-keen eyesight and the ability to rotate his head for 200-degree vision, Remmy surveys the shopping center for signs of pigeons. And when the pigeons at Broadway Plaza see Remmy, they take notice.
On a recent day, Maguire-Colton released the 2-year-old hawk from her gloved hand. He flew to the top of a cosmetics store, Lush, and scanned the outdoor eating area. Not seeing any pigeons, he swooped back down to his trainer’s hand.
The parking garage, however, was a different story. Up in the rafters was a pigeon that apparently hadn’t received the memo announcing Remmy’s hire as the mall’s official bird bouncer. Taking flight, Remmy darted toward the blacklisted bird. After several ensuing squawks, the smaller bird retreated, flying out of the open-air garage to parts unknown. Seemingly satisfied with a job well done, Remmy returned to Maguire-Colton and received a small piece of meat for his efforts.
“A scared pigeon is an educated pigeon,” Maguire-Colton says. “That pigeon will return to its flock and let the other birds know there’s a hawk here who means business. Pigeons are smart birds — they will remember where the hawk is and will seek out another venue for shelter, water and food.”
Maguire-Colton, a lifelong bird lover who is a licensed falconer, purchased Remmy from a California breeder when he was 5 months old. When she began training him at around 7 months old, she taught him to focus on pigeons. When he’s not working, he hangs out in a large enclosure at her home with her other Harris’s hawk, TK, or goes hunting with her for rabbits and pheasants.
“Harris’s hawks have a natural instinct to hunt,” said Maguire-Colton, who keeps Remmy on a long leash, letting him off only when he searches for prey. To call him back, she uses whistles and commands and rewards him for following directions.
Although Remmy appears fearless, he does shiver when a pet dog passes by. Maguire-Colton said she thinks he sees dogs as coyotes, one of the hawk’s predators in the wild. (He has an especially strong dislike for dogs in sweaters.)
Remmy’s an all-weather bird, in California at least. But when temperatures hit triple digits, Maguire-Colton brings a water bottle for him and keeps Remmy in shaded areas to prevent overheating. Sometimes, she said, she dips her finger into the mall fountains, and if it doesn’t taste too strongly of chlorine, she lets the hawk take a quick dip.
Since Remmy began patrolling the mall two years ago, most of its pigeons have departed, but the garage is a popular nesting spot for the stragglers that remain. (Nik Childers)
Unsurprisingly, Remmy has established a fan following at Broadway Plaza. On this day, a man with two small children stopped to inquire about the bird’s species and job description. Later, two tourists from Japan approached to ask whether they could pose for a photo with Remmy.
“Hiring Remmy was the best money we’ve spent,” Dress said. “He not only keeps the mall free of pigeons, he’s also become something of a local celebrity.”
About 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 Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
