by johnnymarin | Oct 28, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Actor turned director Soubin Shahir’s Parava focus mainly on two young boys from Mattanchery in Kochi, whose lives revolve around the pigeons that they passionately look after.
Haseeb and Irshad are classmates and best friends, who are growing pigeons, training them to be ready for the race that happens in their area. The boys come from modest households and one of them fails in the exam. But he has hope as he believes that a newly joined girl is impressed by his charm.
It’s them, along with the lives of the people in the locality, that makes the going entertaining for a significant time in the first half.
Then there is a shift in the tale, as the story goes into a flashback mode, where Imran (Dulquer Salmaan) and Shane (Shane Nigam) takes control. Their gang is having a blast until things go horribly wrong for them at a certain point of time
In fact, you watch with a certain surprise when a smoothly running story that is fresh and honest, takes a back seat all on a sudden. The sequences that follow goes on like a separate track that is not really gripping as the earlier one.
But all these never takes away the merits of the movie. Let’s put it this way. The sequences with the two kids in the lead are so brilliant that one would have wanted to watch it for a longer duration.
Soubin Shahir packages the film with lots of confidence and he makes us feel like we belong to that area, knowing the characters well enough.
Dulquer Salmaan, in a rather extended cameo, is totally comfortable as a rustic youth and shines bright. Shane Nigam has to sport two different looks and he is highly impressive. The supporting cast has done a commendable job behaving like normal residents there and look authentic.
But Parava belongs to the two young boys Amal Shah, who plays Irshad aka Ichappi, and Govind, who comes as Haseeb. The two young actors play their role earnestly and just steals your heart with their charm. They are natural and are real talents.
Parava could have been better and some trimming would have helped as well, but has its heart at the right place even in the current form. This one has its moments and is an absolutely sincere attempt. In these times when genuine stories are a rarity, this is a step in the right direction.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 27, 2017 | Bird Netting
B.F. Skinner was a leading 20th-century psychologist, who is credited with helping to understand the relationship between behaviour and the external environmental factors. In one of his experiments, Skinner trained a bunch of pigeons to tap on a plexiglass to earn their food. This research is credited with the genesis for how engineers in the 21st century could play with the human mind to set out the trap of the world wide web. What Skinner managed to do with pigeons, 21st-century coders have achieved in structuring the internet.
Skinner’s experiment was simple. The psychologist set up a plexiglass cage in which he kept a few pigeons. When these pigeons tapped on the glass, he set up an arrangement to ensure that the birds got a reward after a set period of time. The birds tapped the glass at different frequencies and found success at the set moment. When he then set erratic times for the dispensing of food, the birds went crazy. Reportedly, one pigeon pecked the plexiglass 2.5 times per second for 16 hours.
But how does this apply to how humans use the internet?
Look back at how you started using the internet. It started out with checking emails. It was an easy method, you didn’t have to decipher any weird handwritings and the email, unlike written communication, almost never got lost. When the internet came into your phone from your desktop, you checked it more often. Now, the relay of messages started happening in real time on apps such as Whatsapp and Slack. A study states that an average person now checks his phone about 2,617 times a day. Of course, this isn’t just office email. But the sheer frequency indicates that things are going out of hand.
To put this in perspective, in a day, Skinner’s pigeons would have struck the glass 1,44,000 times to get food. An average millennial checks their phones at a frequency a lot similar to Skinner’s pigeons. What’s different here is that this action does not translate into an end product, that is necessary for human survival. Therefore, it’s evident, that basing the structures of the internet on Skinner’s model, was a fruitful decision indeed.
Psychologists warned us of internet addiction in 1996, three years after it was formally introduced. But is internet addiction, really the fault of those using it? Or is it simply a network constructed with the ultimate motive of entrapping and addicting its users?
In his book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F**k”, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, Mark Manson brings up an important point talking about blame and responsibility. He says that while it is okay to blame someone for something, it then becomes the affected individual’s responsibility to move on. The concept is rather like the economic caveat emptor. You use something; you read something, it becomes your responsibility to deal with it in a proper way.
The Economics And Psychology Of Social Media Platforms
The primary motive of organisations on the internet is to generate revenue. And that is usually done through advertising. They create an ‘attention economy’. Now to meet their desired results, these organisations need to create a structure that makes its users return. In psychological speak, they try to create a compulsive tic to meet their needs.
This compulsive tic is generated rather easily. Most platforms on the internet, particularly social media, run on a pattern. This is because their future depends on their ability to cultivate habits of the users, and hook them onto their product. They employee people, whose primary aim is to break the user’s willpower. In particular, they use a strategy described in Nir Eyal’s book “Hooked”. As a consultant to companies in the Silicon Valley, Eyal turned his experience into a book, teaching thousands of engineers worldwide, how to create a craving in the minds of users.
This process of addiction has four simple steps – you need a trigger (something that makes you take notice or get started), an opportunity for an action that is not predictable, a reward and an investment. It must be noted here that there was one more integral part of this process that needs to be kept in mind. The investment must be gradually increased every time until the person is fully invested in the four-step process. This is when an individual gets hooked.
The easiest example of this process is Snapchat. When you open the app, the trigger awaits – a list of names who have posted snaps. Then, an opportunity for action presents itself, regarding the stories you can watch, but what a user may be able to see, is unpredictable, creating the basis for the tic. Once the stories load, comes the reward, a peek into the lives of someone else. Further, being able to reply, replay or react creates investment in the action.
Every time you open Snapchat, the same process repeats itself. Most readers would now agree, that the process has become so ingrained in our lives, that every time we pick up the phone, we reload Snapchat, looking for more stories. This is when you’re hooked. You know how apps like Instagram and Twitter take a few seconds to load when you switch them on? That’s no accident – the wait makes the reward far more appealing, leading to a rush.
Much has been said about how social media influences our emotions and the need to educate users about proper use to ward of addiction. However, we need to consider – Is it a fair fight between the users and developers? Is this not, addiction by design, a phenomenon many are under, but most do not understand?
If the there is indeed an industry that is so blatantly exploiting the tendencies of the human mind, creating platforms based on the same experiments that have gone on to help prove the effectiveness of drugs, then is it a system that is safe for approximately 7 billion people to be exposed to?
Only If We Understand The Structure, Can We Protect Ourselves Against It
In 2004, Facebook was fun. Come 2017, Facebook is an addiction. This timeline is valid for all social media platforms, maybe even for the one, you’re reading this on. They are designed to keep you addicted.
So what are the solutions? How do we ‘not get addicted’ to a technology that runs our life now? Unlike drug or alcohol addicts, we cannot abstain from the internet. Life would be too tough. Fewer and fewer jobs allow you to not be looking at a screen.
What can be done is limiting the use of the internet. More importantly, as users, it is important for us to understand its structure – to realise that it is a platform built to exploit our impulses. That perhaps can mitigate their harm.
Figuring out the exact moment of addiction is tough. What you can do, however, is try to curb your own addiction by ensuring that you limit your time on the internet. Recognise the appeal of meeting people in person, rather than following their lives online. Most importantly, teach your children the correct way to use and understand social media and the internet.
It’s understandable that tech companies would want to collaborate with marketers and make their platforms as addictive as they can. It’s their business, and they won’t want to not make profits. But as users, we need to demand a more ethical design practises the same way we demand more ethical environmental practices. In a monetary and competitive environment, sometimes change can only come from a bottom-up approach.
Steve Jobs himself has told many journalists tales of how he keeps his children away from the iPad – one of his most successful creations. Similarly, the editor in chief of Wired, a magazine that talks about technology and the internet too, keeps his children away from screens. If tech bigwigs can understand the dangers of the internet, why can’t we?
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 26, 2017 | Bird Netting
Redbridge Council has warned that pigeon feeders face an £80 on the spot fine and a possible £2,500 trip to court.
In a statement issued on its website, the council reminded the public that giving food to birds could cause health and sanitation risks.
“If you feed pigeons, they won’t eat everything you give them and the leftovers attract rats and mice who can in turn spread diseases to humans,” a council spokesman said.
“You’re really not helping the pigeons by feeding them bread and snacks – this can actually lead to them becoming malnourished and dying due to eating food which is not their natural diet.
“Please don’t feed the pigeons.”
In April legislation came into effect to make feeding pigeons an illegal act in Ilford town centre.
A Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) – which gives authorities more powers to tackle low level anti-social behaviours such as spitting and public urination – could be used in pigeons feeding cases.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 25, 2017 | Bird Netting
Officials there reportedly are trying to be as nice as they can about reducing their numbers. They’ve built a hotel for birds. The plan: lure the pigeons there to nest, and then steal their eggs.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Good morning. I’m David Greene. Portugal has a pigeon population problem. And The Wall Street Journal reports officials in Lisbon are trying to be as nice as they can about reducing their numbers. They have built basically a luxury hotel for birds. The plan – lure the pigeons there to nest, then caretakers sneak in and steal their eggs. The birdhouse has fresh water, gourmet bird food, even a nursery, which makes you wonder if the pigeons are somehow outsmarting the humans here. It’s MORNING EDITION.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 24, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
A LOST homing pigeon has found a new home in Rugeley after “refusing” to return to Yorkshire.
Staff at the town’s Donnachie and Townley vets found the bird on their doorstep.
They found the owner, who confirmed the lost bird’s true home was in Halifax.
The owner gave instructions about when to release the bird, christened Tango, but the next morning he was on their doorstep again – and now lives with one of the surgery’s neighbours.
Head veterinary nurse Jo Waldron said: “We released Tango twice and both times he came back. What can we say – obviously he prefers Rugeley to Halifax.”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 23, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
You wouldn’t think it an unreasonable request: Please, good sirs, be a dear and clean up the pigeon droppings in front of your building. Not only are they unsightly, but they are also a public health nuisance.
Turns out that in this town, yes, there is resistance to cleaning up pigeon droppings. It’s a perfect metaphor for why all of Mount Pleasant looks neglected, run-down and flat-out decayed. We as a community have taken the American can-do attitude that put a man on the Moon and turned it into a contraction. It’s Mount Pleasant’s can’t-do spirit. Can’t stop businesses from closing, can’t stop storefronts from falling into disrepair, can’t even clean up bird crap from downtown sidewalks.
Some of these things represent forces beyond any control. No one in town can stop the migration of consumer activity to the Web, for instance. Rather than thinking that we’re going to fix things by using the same hammer to pound at the same nail, we have to adapt to today’s world rather than bemoan the loss of yesterday’s.
But, my god, the lack of energy and urgency devoted to fixing a community that simply looks haggard and used up … it’s like no one is even trying. Like, not bothering to clean up after pigeons.
It’s very basic stuff, folks. Like, so basic I’m surprised it has to be an issue. Like, so basic, that we as a community ought to let slide things like broken pavement, cigarette butt-filled planters and shaggy-looking marquee posters as a different conversation until the pigeon poo gets cleaned up.
It’s the unsightliness of it. It’s the public health risk. It’s about making a place look attractive to people hoping to relocate or make business investments here. It’s also about yelling at CMU students to stop treating the city like their personal toilets while actually allowing pigeons to literally do that.
At the start of the summer, if you’d have asked, I would have pointed to commercial vacancies as the biggest impediment to revitalizing this city. It’s even worse. If we as a community are incapable of getting bird poop cleaned up, it’s a sign that we need a total rebuild. Not an adjustment, not a modification. A total tear-down and rebuild from the foundation. Normal people don’t accept sidewalks covered in animal feces.
There are lots of people to point fingers at, if that’s your thing. The morning of this writing, someone who operates businesses downtown referred to a concerned private citizen as an idiot for complaining. An idiot, for complaining about pigeon poop caked to the sidewalks. Talk about misplaced priorities.
At the city, someone should have addressed this more aggressively so people didn’t have to take time out of their busy days to complain about it. We don’t need another ordinance or public hearings or months of talk and tabled motions to clean up pigeon poo. We need someone to go to building owners and say, “Clean this up, and clean this up now, or we’re going to cite you and if you don’t want to pay the fine you can explain to a judge why you are endangering public health.”
But, mostly it’s the attitude, the attitude that all of our problems are intractable, that we can’t address any of them because we lack the tools to take action. Not to engage in hyperbole, but we do remember who licked the Nazis and rebuilt Western Civilization 60 years ago? Cleaning up after birds seems like a pretty low bar by comparison.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 22, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Efforts to bring Glendive’s pigeon population under control are picking up steam with nearly 300 of the winged vermin trapped out of the downtown area in the past month and a half.
District Sanitarian Kevin Peña approached the city Finance, Utilities, Property and Recreation Committee on Wednesday to ask that the city go ahead and donate the $1,000 to the pigeon control effort which the city council had set aside for that very purpose a few months ago, which the committee ultimately recommended the full city council approve doing.
Peña explained that the “pigeon trapper” he worked out an agreement with some months back to undertake pigeon control, Brian Cleveland, has been unable to turn a profit off of trapping the birds as he thought he would be able to. Cleveland’s original plan had been to trap the birds and then sell them to buyers down in Florida, where the birds are considered a delicacy and sold in restaurants as “squab.”
“That didn’t prove to be as feasible as he had hoped, because basically the shipping turned out to be more than he thought it would be,” Peña said.
Peña told the FUPR Committee that with being unable to sell the pigeons he traps at a profit — and with Cleveland supplying the trapping supplies at his own cost — he felt it would be “fair and reasonable” to give Cleveland a $2 per pigeon bounty as he has now requested. Peña noted that the county has also pledged $1,000 to his office for pigeon control, adding that with the addition of the city’s contribution, he would have enough funds to pay Cleveland for trapping up to 1,000 birds.
“A thousand dollars from you and a thousand dollars from me is going to take care of a thousand birds,” Peña told the FUPR Committee. “And we can certainly reimburse the city with what we don’t spend or we can just roll it over.”
The only materials Peña has provided for the effort through his office so far is the trap itself. He noted that with that one trap, which has been sitting on top of the Jordan Inn since August, Cleveland has managed to trap out 268 pigeons — 204 in August and 64 so far this month.
In a phone interview Thursday, Cleveland said he estimates there’s “probably about 1,100 to 1,200 left after I’ve taken out almost 300,” adding that with continued trapping, he believes he can almost zero out Glendive’s pigeon population before the first snow flies.
“I have a feeling that by Halloween, this problem will be drastically reduced and we won’t see near the number of birds that we have now,” Cleveland said. “Probably one-half to three-quarters of the population will be gone before the first snow.”
Cleveland should know a thing or two of what he’s talking about, Peña pointed out. He ran his own wildlife trapping business out of Tampa, Fla., for 23 years, and professionally trapped pigeons and other wildlife all over that region, including working to trap pigeons out of Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Peña isn’t the only one who has decided to rely on Cleveland’s expertise, either. Earlier this week, a new trap went up on top of the Dion Building. The building’s owner, Dr. Kevin McPherson, privately contracted with Cleveland to trap pigeons out from around his downtown property.
McPherson said that after taking ownership of the Dion Building, he talked to Peña and researched several different options for pigeon control and ultimately decided that contracting with Cleveland to trap them would be the best way to go about it.
“I’d looked into ways of dealing with pigeons on my own and I basically concluded the only humane and efficient way to do it was to trap them and get them out of there that way,” McPherson said.
McPherson said he is keen to rid his building of roosting pigeons not just because they are “a nuisance and a health concern,” but also because the birds’ acidic droppings can do a great deal of damage to the brick and stone work on the historic buildings themselves.
He added his hope that other downtown building and business owners might also get involved in the pigeon control effort, saying that getting rid of the pigeons — and their ubiquitous droppings — littering the building sides and sidewalks of downtown Glendive would be another important step in breathing new life into the downtown area and making it a more attractive place for people to visit, shop and eat.
“I guess my thoughts are that if people are going to come down to our downtown and shop in the stores and eat in the restaurants, they should be able to do so and expect that the sidewalks should be clean and they don’t have to watch out for what’s above them,” McPherson said. “I think (pigeon control) helps promote a cleaner community, a cleaner downtown and a more enjoyable (downtown) experience.”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 21, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
Location ;- Khar station, opp to Khar market Mumbai Kharlocated in the middle of the busy market with no proper upkeep — a perpetual unhygienic nightmare it has been a cause of great public inconvenience and a potential source of diseases and epidemics for localsThe droppings also carry pathogens and potential infectious diseases, such as salmonella, tuberculosis and ornithosis. Pigeons also carry allergens that can cause several respiratory diseases, Need to take precautions by the local authority and safety major due which the citizen can take a good breath.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 20, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Clark County commissioners will consider language for a new ordinance that would outlaw feeding pigeons from private property.
The pigeon problem was discussed for nearly an hour after Teresa Oxborrow asked what could be done about a neighbor attracting hundreds of the birds by regularly feeding them.
“Because they are fed so well, some of them are as big as chickens,” Oxborrow told commissioners. She also had video of the suspected neighbor feeding the birds in her Spring Valley neighborhood.
“Pigeons are basically flying rats. They don’t eat out of bird feeders. They’ll eat anything on the ground,” declared commissioner Chris Giunchigliani.
While there’s an ordinance that prohibits feeding pigeons on public property, it does not apply to doing the same on private property.
In coming months, the commission will review language for a possible new ordinance to address feeding pigeons on private property.
In large numbers, pigeons are destructive and are difficult to remove from a place where they have become comfortable.
“I mean she’s got buckets and buckets of food. That’s all she must buy,” said Oxborrow, in describing the regular feeding of the birds.
“The pigeon droppings have destroyed patios, rooftops, and lawn furniture,” she said.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 19, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Budgie lovers are in a flap over a city pet bylaw they say is turning dozens of respectable, longstanding bird keepers into scofflaws.
Several members of the decades-old Hamilton and District Budgerigar Society Inc. showed up at a city planning meeting Tuesday to appeal for an exemption from the city’s animal control bylaw – which infamously limits all residents to no more than four pets.
The limit introduced in 2012 is already unpopular with owners of cats, dogs and other more traditional pets.
But it is really ruffling feathers now for avian aficionados who routinely keep 40 to 120 birds – typically on the higher end if they participate in birds shows, said society vice-president Scott Aird.
“For that, you need at least 100 birds,” said Aird, whose relatively modest “chatter” of 60 budgies earned the wrath of bylaw a few months ago and resulted in both a $125 fine and an upcoming December court date.
For now, a bird-loving acquaintance is boarding Aird’s illegal brood. But other urban club members are also becoming worried about losing their birds to a neighbourhood dispute.
Budgie owners represent hundreds, and probably thousands, of illegal feathered friends – and Aird suggested that doesn’t include all of the equally off-limits small “cage birds” that are likely flying under the radar.
Aird said he was told his bylaw visit was prompted by a noise complaint. But despite the name, he argued a “chatter” of indoor budgies is less noisy than say, four legal macaw parrots or four excitable dogs in the backyard.
“Our birds are contained, they’re largely indoors in homes, garages or specially constructed out-buildings,” he said.
Aird said the budgie group disagreed with the bylaw limit when it was approved, but wasn’t aware of the impending change in time to formally oppose it.
The rule didn’t ruffle any feathers, however, until bylaw officers started showing up on doorsteps.
“We’ve been here (as a society) for 70 years,” said Aird. “We’re law-abiding. But it is impossible for us to meet the letter of this law.”
The group asked Tuesday for a bylaw exemption for all “small cage birds,” noting the city has already granted an exception to owners of racing pigeons.
Councillors received the presentation, but didn’t ask for a staff report or suggestion a motion.
That leaves budgie lovers pondering an appeal to help for national avian organizations, noting pigeon owners benefited from lobbying by the Canadian Racing Pigeon Union.
(That group memorably argued to councillors that owners raised “athletes,” not pets.)
Aird noted councillors even seemed friendlier towards community requests for backyard chickens, even if that pitch has been narrowly turned down in the past.
“If you can do it for pigeons, I feel like it’s not unreasonable to consider an exception for us,” he said.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 18, 2017 | Bird Netting
THE Gauteng Pigeon Union (GPU) liberated the pigeons in a combined liberation from Cradock in the Eastern Cape on Saturday.
The weather was partly cloudy with no wind at 6.30am when the pigeons were liberated.
This race was also a car nomination race where members of the various unions and federations could nominate pigeons at R150 each with the chance of either winning a car/bakkie or receiving a cash payout, depending on how many fanciers participated.
The results of the car race will only be known in a couple of weeks, once all the results have been verified.
Riverpark Pigeon Club had 16 members flying 180 pigeons in this race. Cradock is an average distance of 714km for club members. The winds on the way home for the pigeons were mild north-westerly in places and the temperatures in the Free State were in the mid to late 20s, making for a better race than the previous week.
Winning by a margin of five minutes and five seconds, and his first win of the season, was Connie Coertse. Connie also earned bragging rights as he only basketed the one pigeon for this race.
The time margin difference for second and third places was the same (0:05:05) and the only way the computer system could calculate these two positions was on the velocity of the pigeons.
In second place, by only 18mm, was Beano Daschner, followed by Tallies Lofts (Johan Taljaard). This is the second time this season that the club has had such a close margin between two positions on the result sheet.
Coertse’s Blue Bar White Flight hen GPU 15 1591 had a nett flying time of eight hours 58 minutes and 11 seconds and it took 36 minutes and 29 seconds to fill the top 30 positions. The rest of the results were:
Connie Coertse 1st; Beano Daschner 2nd, 10th; Tallies Lofts (Johan Taljaard) 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th; Flip van Staden 4th, 21st, 29th; Sky Lofts (Corrie Moller) 5th, 23rd; Doves Nest Guest House (Gawie Botha) 6th, 14th, 19th, 24th, 30th; Blackie Swart 7th, 9th, 11th, 26th; Le Roux Lofts (Pieter le Roux) 12th; Hilton Pitout 15th; Pieter van den Broeck 16th, 25th; G & E Lofts (Graham Cheary & Elaine Russell) 17th, 20th; Fred van Rensburg 22nd, 27th and Reinhold Brichta 28th.
On Saturday the GPU will liberate the pigeons from Richmond in the Northern Cape for the Old Bird National in a combined liberation.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 17, 2017 | Bird Netting
The Miami man convicted last month of murdering a friend over prized racing pigeons has died after a suspected suicide attempt in jail.
Lazaro Romero, 47, was found unresponsive inside his cell at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center earlier this month just as South Florida was scrambling to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Irma. Romero was taken to a nearby hospital, where he later died on Sept. 7.
His death is being investigated by Miami-Dade police detectives. Authorities have not disclosed how Romero died, and the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to rule on a cause and manner of death.
It was a tragic end for Romero, who was convicted of the November 2013 stabbing death of Yoan Vazquez in Miami. The killing roiled the small but devoted South Florida community devoted to the sport of pigeon racing. The sport is particularly popular in Cuba, where Vazquez and Romero first learned how racing pigeons.
“All around, this case has been an enormous tragedy,” said his defense attorney, Julia Seifer-Smith. “I’ve only known Lazaro to have an incredible remorse about it having happened. He’s only shown me and my co-counsel kindness and he has an incredible love for his family and overwhelming pride in his sons.”
A Miami-Dade jail spokesman declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation.
Prosecutors said Romero believed Vazquez owed him 20 prized racing pigeons, and went with his brother to the man’s home to get them back at knife point. Romero and his brother attacked Vazquez in his backyard — while the man’s 6-year-old daughter watched.
Romero did not stab Vazquez; it was his brother, Freddy Romero, who delivered the fatal knife thrusts. Freddy Romero pleaded guilty and is now doing 25 years in prison.
At trial, Romero’s defense lawyers said he never planned to hurt Vazquez — and had no idea that his brother would fatally stab the man.
The jury on Aug. 31 deliberated less than two hours before deciding he was guilty of second-degree murder. Romero had been out on bail before the trial, but was taken back into custody after his conviction.
He faced up to life in prison, and was to be sentenced sometime in the coming months.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 16, 2017 | Bird Netting
Video has emerged of a group of men believed to have been catching pigeons for food in Exeter.
The footage was shot by a man who was in Sidwell Street shopping with his young daughter last month.
The driver says he saw one man scattering seeds then was shocked to see another grab a white pigeon and stuff it into a rucksack.
He caught a few seconds on vide while pretending to be talking on the phone as he was scared to attract the attention of the group, who he says were loud and aggressive.
Afterwards, he went to Heavitree police station to report the men.
He told Devonlive.com the group appeared drunk and were “speaking and laughing loudly”.
“My daughter felt intimidated even just being in the car,” added the man, who asked not to be named but has given police his details.
“The men were sat on the bench – it looked like they were having fun, like it was planned.
Sidwell Street traders’ have spoke of their horror after witnessing street drinkers stuff 14 pigeons into a rucksack in the space of 20 minutes
“They spread the seeds then waited for the pigeons to come. One captured a white pigeon and the other opened the bag and dropped it in.
“That’s when I thought I am going to the police. People were looking wondering what was going on but these guys didn’t look like the sort of people you could ask why there were doing this.
“I thought it was disgusting, to see humans behaving like this in the middle of a city centre. It was very aggressive and they were doing it in front of children.”
Sidwell Street traders’ spoke of their horror after witnessing street drinkers stuff 14 live pigeons into a rucksack – in a cruel act believed to be food-gathering.
PCSO Sarah Giles, part of the city centre’s policing team, described the unbelievable incident as part of ‘blatant pigeon eating’ recognised by police, and has pinpointed a particular group of drinkers responsible.
One anonymous trader said the incident, on August 31, which took place over 20 minutes, was “horrifying” to witness.
She described how she, and passers-by, saw a man known for drinking regularly at the spot, coaxing pigeons with bird seed.
“I was horrified. I know there are too many pigeons and I’ve never been a fan, but how can you be so cruel to an animal? That to me was cruel.
“If I was a bigger person I would have taken the rucksack off them, but it was two strapping blokes.”
“It’s all alcohol related, they sit on Sidwell Street drinking at all hours of the day. There aren’t enough police around.”
PCSO Giles said geese and swans have been reportedly captured by the river in the past, and that it is all down to a particular group of “street attached” drinkers.
It is ingrained issue, one she wishes she could solve.
She said: “They have money to spend on booze, so they have the money to buy food. ”
“Many of this group are housed, in B&B’s, bedsits or small flats.
The incident happened just one week after the murder of a seagull on the same street.
Shoppers, including small children, watched as a woman on Sidwell Street stamped on the head of the bird at 3pm on Friday, August 25.
PCSO Giles believes traders on Sidwell Street need to band together to stamp out the anti-social behaviour which has become commonplace on the key route into Exeter city centre.
She worries it will soon fall foul of the “broken window” theory – that if you leave a broken window unfixed another will break, and the area will soon be disrespected.
“We need to get community cohesion going, we need a sense of identity in Sidwell Street. We don’t have the option to police it every day and a traders group would be benefitial.”
She is also positive the recently introduced PSPO will help combat the problems, offering greater leverage with the drinkers.
“It is still early days, but I am hugely optimistic it will help,” she added.
Police said they were investigating the incident and are currently studying CCTV of the area.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 15, 2017 | Bird Netting
When I informed my wife that I was heading out to join my friend David Hanson for an afternoon pigeon shoot with the new air powered “Wing Shot” air shotgun by Air Venturi, her reply was something like, “Not those little pigeons that hang around city parks? Surely not!”
I assured her the birds we were going after probably had never even been in the city limits of Lone Oak, the nearest “town” to where we were hunting. These were “wild”, feral birds that made their living just like other wild birds, eating seeds and grain around farms in the area. Little did I know just how “wild” these birds really are!
A few days before the hunt, the UPS man delivered my new air shotgun, complete with pre-loaded shot cups with #6 and #8 shot. I’ve been shooting and hunting with PCP air rifles for several years. These are not your grandfather’s air rifles. They charge up to 3,000 psi. of air pressure via scuba or carbon fiber tanks and the big bore rifles have enough power to harvest any animal in North America. I have a .25 caliber that is absolutely lethal on small game. But this Wing Shot air shotgun was totally new to me.
I promptly charged the shotgun to 3,000 psi., loaded it with a shot cup containing a little over an ounce of #6 shot, placed a quarter inch piece of plywood against a safe backstop, stapled a square of paper to the plywood, stepped back 25 yards, centered the shotgun bead on the center of the paper and fired my first shot. With the discharge of the pressure, I knew the shotgun was shooting hard. Upon closer inspection of my target, I was amazed at just how hard!
The pattern from the choke was well dispersed in a 14-inch diameter circle on the paper; the shot had penetrated through the quarter-inch plywood. I was convinced this gun had plenty of power to use on a bird hunt. Air powered guns are not legal on any game animals or birds in Texas with the exception of squirrels. This rules out the use of air on dove or quail or any of the migratory species but feral pigeons aren’t game birds and neither is the exotic dove species such as the Eurasian dove that is becoming common through much of the state.
Hanson had scouted a big hay barn situated in the middle of a cow pasture the day before and asked his “kin folks” that owned the land if we might go out for a late afternoon shoot. We pulled up to within a couple hundred yards of the barn and through binoculars, could see a big flock of feral pigeons setting on the beams that supported the roof. Occasionally, a small flock would fly out to pick grit from a sand pile out in the field or fly to a nearby electrical line. Hanson and I had an ice cooler along for the birds we expected to harvest. We even had a plan for cooking them. Grilled pigeon breast with jalapeno and garlic wrapped in bacon was on the menu and from our vantage point a couple hundred yards away, this should be an easy shoot! Were we about to get educated in the ways of the feral pigeon! These most definitely weren’t the docile “park” birds my wife gave reference to.
The field was wide open and when we approached within a hundred yards of the barn, every pigeon took wing and flew directly to land on a highline wire about 400 yards distant. No problem, we thought. We will just set inside the barn and shoot them as they flew back. There was no mass return flight as we witnessed when we spooked the birds. Occasionally a bird or two would approach well out of range, circle a time or two and return to their highline perch. These pigeons were as wary as any game birds I’ve hunted, actually more wary. A turkey, duck or goose for that matter, can be called within shotgun range. Spinning wing decoys are usually highly effective for bringing dove within range. These pigeons had obviously graduated from the class of “Hunter Avoidance 101.”
About thirty minutes before dark, the desire to roost caused the birds to come back to the barn but much to our despair, they didn’t simply fly inside the enclosure and land on a rafter. No, they circled high and then landed “ON TOP OF THE ROOF!” These birds were smart and we came to the conclusion that to harvest them, we would have to devise a better plan.
Picture this — two grown men inside a big, open hay barn, hidden beside the tires of trailers or tractors, listening to what sounded like hundreds of bird feet clicking on top of the metal roof. These birds were driving us crazy! Only fifteen feet above our heads it sounded as though these pigeons were having a big square dance. We could hear them cooing and clicking up their heels!
Finally a pigeon that had either been consuming too many fermented berries or possibly tired of just being “one of the flock”, hovered outside the roof, contemplating coming in and landing on a comfortable steel beam inside the barn. Hanson jerked the trigger on the Wing Shot and the pattern centered the bird. It was obvious that the power of compressed air in a shotgun generates enough power to cleanly harvest birds but Hanson and I felt a bit cheated by these “super” pigeons. The next time I hear someone use the term, “pigeon brain”, do I ever have a story to relate that might just change their way of thinking about these “dumb” little birds!
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 14, 2017 | Bird Netting
PESHAWAR: Amid awareness campaign launched by the provincial government for the dengue-affected people in the provincial capital, the mosquito-borne disease on Sunday infected 310 more people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to government officials, 26 people have so far lost their lives as a result of dengue virus in KP. The provincial Health Department reported that sessions were conducted in the government-run schools in the dengue-hit Tehkal and Pishtakhara union councils, where the virus was reported in July this year. The awareness sessions were started three days ago where health experts informed local residents about dengue and its breeding causes and gave them useful suggestions for remaining safe from dengue mosquitoes.
The government is stated to have spent millions of rupees by providing services to dengue patients in the public sector hospitals, conducting larvicide sprays in the affected areas and distributing mosquito nets and repellent lotions among the residents of Tehkal and Pishtakhara.
However, these efforts by the government didn’t help control dengue virus and it has been infecting 300-400 people every day. Health experts are of the opinion that there are still open water reservoirs in different forms in the dengue affected areas where thousands of dengue larvae are breeding.
“Since weather is quite hot therefore majority of the people are using water air-coolers in their houses and work places. These air-coolers are the among best places for dengue breeding,” a health expert at the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) opined.
Pleading anonymity, he said some of the people in Tehkal and Pishtakhara had kept pigeons on their rooftops where water was put into pots, saying they found dengue larvae in air-coolers and in pots from which pigeons drank water.
Meanwhile, the Dengue Response Unit confirmed that 1,527 people were taken to different hospitals where 310 were discharged with dengue. It said of the 310 patients, 120 were admitted in hospitals and 116 were discharged from hospitals their recovery.
Presently, according to DRU, 365 dengue patients are under treatment in different hospitals of the province. Khyber Teaching Hospital, where 917 patients were taken with fever and body ache, 196 of them were diagnosed with dengue. At the moment, KTH is providing services to 235 indoor dengue patients.
Around 42 patients tested positive at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) of whom 28 were admitted in the hospital. The Hayatabad Medical Complex also diagnosed 45 patients with dengue. It had received 156 patients.
The Naseerullah Babar Hospital in Peshawar tested two patients dengue positive. Similarly, Mansehra reported nine dengue positive cases, Mardan eight cases, Buner four and Abbottabad two cases.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 13, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
Koka is a respected figure in Cairo’s pigeon fighting world. His life revolves around preparing for the contests, in which whole neighbourhoods clash to hunt and capture each other’s pigeons.
Away from the duels, he spends his time caring for the hundreds of pigeons he rears in a ramshackle wooden tower he has built on his roof.
Like numerous other breeders, Koka treasures the pigeons for their loyalty, discipline and the deep pride they bring him.
But his pigeon fighting days may be numbered. Coming from a conservative community, the 29-year-old is under immense pressure to quit his passion, get married and settle down.
Fearing that his next contest could be his last, Koka challenges one of Cairo’s best pigeon fighting neighbourhoods. Will he cement his reputation as a great pigeon handler or lose his parting battle?
I stumbled upon the phenomenon of pigeon contests in Cairo while working on different topics in this mega city’s endless suburbs. I was always impressed by the fragile wooden structures standing on rooftops all over the city, and I knew that they were connected to pigeons, but I would never have thought that there was a whole world up there with its own rules, even with its own language.
I was wandering the streets of Garbage City, an area of mostly Christian waste workers, when I first met Koka, one of the strongest competitors inside the community of pigeoneers. Standing on his pigeon tower felt like being in a different world, far from the chaos that rules the streets.
Fortunately, I met Koka during wintertime, the season for pigeon contests. It was right before some major encounters between different neighbourhoods that have a long tradition of going into battles with their pigeons.
Seeing a race for the first time was an overwhelming visual experience, which made me stick to this topic for the following three years. These pigeon contests served as a perfect vehicle for getting an inside view of such a closed community. I was taken to gatherings and battles in areas that I would never have gotten to otherwise.
The society of the pigeon fighters is unknown even to most Egyptians. Their races are based on a sophisticated set of rules and their language is dominated by military expressions. The combatants call themselves knights and each knight has a nom de guerre, such as “The Butcher” in Koka’s case.
During filming, the question that interested me the most was, “How does a pigeon – otherwise the symbol of peace – become the token of martial spirit and male pride?”
One of the fighters tried to explain it to me this way: “Imagine it like it was Barcelona against Real Madrid. It is like football, only that it’s more serious, because we’ve been doing it for way longer than them.”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 12, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
If you feed them, they will roost.
And poop. They will definitely poop.
Nesting pigeons and the scat they leave behind have been a perennial and somewhat costly problem for Clark County. Complaints from residents are so common that Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak wants to discuss what can be done during Tuesday’s commission meeting.
“We’ve got a proliferation of pigeons in some of these areas,” Sisolak said. “There’s a lot of property damage as a result of pigeons roosting.”
The bird’s corrosive poop can damage paint, concrete roof tiles and air conditioning equipment. Their nesting material can clog a drainage system. There’s also a concern about the spread of disease from pigeon carcasses and waste.
Chris Bramley, who oversees the county government’s pest control management, said most of the county’s facilities “have some kind of a pigeon issue.” Flocks of 50 to 60 pigeons can be found living on some roofs.
But the problem has become exceptionally noticeable at the West Flamingo Senior Center, supervisor Diane Olson-Baskin said.
Despite the county’s efforts to dissuade the birds from roosting there — including a sonic repellent system — close to 30 pigeons have made the community center home, Olson-Baskin said. She believes the blame lies in some patrons’ delight in tossing piece of bread to the birds every morning.
“We try to discourage people from feeding the pigeons, but they enjoy it so much that all we can do is encourage them to feed them as far as possible from the building,” Olson-Baskin said.
Such is the stuff that makes up the passionate debate over pigeons. While some people see the birds as pests, others love them.
When county commissioners considered a law banning the feeding of feral pigeons in January 2012 they were inundated with opinions from both sides. A majority of commissioners voted against the proposed law.
Bramley said he has a hard time telling people they should not feed the birds. He understands it’s an enjoyable pastime for many.
Still, “if people want to feed pigeons they should feed them in small amounts,” he said. “Don’t let them learn that you’re taking care of them like they’re your children.”
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 11, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
As we know, there are a great many mad people in the southwestern bit of the country. They claim often that a black panther is living on Exmoor and that if you paint a picture, it’ll be better if you are standing on a ley line.
And now the people of Exeter are saying that homeless people, many of whom may be from Poland, are roaming the streets at night eating pigeons. There are fears this could get out of hand with a local police community support officer saying “now we’re eating pigeons, now we’re killing seagulls. It escalates.”
One resident said she saw two men pounce on a pigeon and put it in a sack and in the space of 20 minutes they’d captured 14 of them. This has made the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds very angry, with a spokesman describing the incident as “horrible”.
“Unlikely” is nearer the mark, though. I knew a man once who wore a suit, played a lot of golf and had never had so much as a parking ticket. But one day, while walking to work over Waterloo Bridge, he remembered being told that you can never kick a pigeon, because it has a housefly-like ability to get out of the way before your foot arrives. And for reasons that haunted him for the rest of his life, he decided to put the theory to the test.
So, in front of all the other suited-and- booted Margaret Thatcher enthusiasts, he took an almighty swing at the bird strutting about in his path and — wallop — it sailed 6ft into the air and crashed back down to earth, stone dead. This proved, much to his embarrassment, that you can kick a pigeon to death.
I had a similar moment in northern Spain about 10 years ago. I was out and about in the packed streets of San Sebastian when I noticed a listless pigeon sitting on a windowsill. “I’ll put that out of its misery,” I thought, and tried to break its neck. But the manoeuvre went wrong and its head came off, which caused the body to fall to the floor where, much to the horror of the many onlookers, it flapped about for several minutes before it decided there was no point any more and lay still.
The weird thing is that this was Spain, where stabbing cows and throwing donkeys off tower blocks is basically like Swingball. And yet they were horrified that I’d pulled a pigeon’s head off.
I think the problem is that we learn from an early age that pigeons are clever. That you can take one to Berlin and it is able to find its way back to its loft in Peterborough.
The Nazis certainly thought this way. Heinrich Himmler was a pigeon enthusiast and made plans for birds to be used to convey messages from agents ahead of an invasion of Britain.
And when authorities here got wind of this, instead of saying, “Oh, don’t be stupid. Why would you use a bird to convey a message when you have a radio?”, they decided the south coast should be patrolled by falcons. And in the Scilly Isles, it really was. That really did happen. It was the Battle of Britain, with feathers.
That legacy lives on in the way people react when pigeons are being harmed. But the thing is that salmon can also home and no one minds when Jeremy Paxman hauls one of those from a river and clubs it to death. Or when a little old lady buys a tin of its flesh and feeds it to her cat.
The fact is, though, that unlike salmon, pigeons are a menace. In towns their muck ruins buildings and in the countryside they can do more damage to crops than an army of drunken students with an alien fixation and garden roller. If you shoot a pigeon — which is harder than kicking one, I assure you — and you open it up, you’ll find more grain in its stomach than in the silos at Hovis.
Which brings us back to the issues in Exeter. If you are fit and sober and you have a gun, it is only just possible to kill a fit pigeon. So I’m suspicious of the story that these homeless drunks are able, in the space of 20 minutes, to get 14 live birds into a sack. (I feel a game show coming on here.)
Let’s just say, though, that they are able, through the fog of strong cider, to catch pigeons, and if things escalate, seagulls. So what? Yes, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 it’s illegal to kill, injure or take any wild bird, but this was drawn up to stop people stealing ospreys and ptarmigans.
Let’s not forget, shall we, that Ken Livingstone, darling of the left and therefore an RSPB poster boy, ejected all the people selling grain to tourists in the pigeon-infested Trafalgar Square and when Wilbur and Myrtle continued to show up with birdseed they’d bought from a Chelsea ladies’ health food shop he introduced a Harris hawk to the area. Which is the Messerschmitt of the skies.
He’d be the first to say that homeless people should be encouraged to eat pigeons and I’d go further. Right now, the hedgerows on my farm are teeming with succulent blackberries and the few trees that haven’t been ruined by deer and squirrels are laden with all kinds of delicious fruit.
If a homeless person were to spend a day in the woods with some Rambo traps and a bit of cunning, he would end up with a feast that even Henry VIII would call “a bit extravagant”.
The problem is, if he killed a deer for some venison and a squirrel for seasoning, he’d have the whole country calling for his blood. And that’s ridiculous. We need to lose our dewy-eyed Disney sentimentality and accept that homeless people eating pigeons they’ve caught is better for them, better for our windowsills and better for the coffers at the NHS than encouraging them instead to eat takeaway pizza and Double Decker chocolate bars they’ve half-inched from the local corner shop.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 10, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
Who needs Farmersonly.com when love can blossom in the livestock barn.
If it wasn’t for the Kansas State Fair, Kacey Rieger, 22, Powhattan and Clay Toews, 24, Burrton, would never have met four years ago. A mutual friend introduced them while they were both showing livestock. They turned out to be agricultural soulmates and will be getting married next Saturday in Brown County.
Preparing for a wedding would be reason enough to forgo a trip to Hutchinson with a livestock trailer filled with their prize Duroc, Chester, Spot and Yorkshire swine to show.
But neither the bride-to-be nor her fiancé would consider it.
Resting on a bleacher in the Sheep, Swine and Goat Building on Friday morning, they were with her brother, 14-year-old Jake Rieger, and her parents, Lori and Bill Rieger, in between swine shows.
Clay Toews says he grew up at the Kansas State Fair.
“I use to show brown Swiss cows,” he said. His father, Bill Toews, is superintendent at the dairy barn.
“We’re a pretty tight tribe,” Clay said. “The Holling family has been showing swine for 56 years, the Harms family 50 years and the Wehner’s 25. That’s consecutive years.”
Now Clay and Kacey will return next year as husband and wife building their own memories. They have had a head start, showing swine together for the past three.
Next Saturday’s wedding will be in a barn at a pumpkin patch near the Rieger farm. A pit-barbecued pig is on the menu.
— Kathy Hanks
McPherson man shows 180 pigeons
He had made it all the way to the grandstand before the Kansas Highway Patrol caught the culprit that flew the coop.
They returned Dave Orth’s pigeon safely back to its cage.
The McPherson pigeon man was thankful. He came with 180 pigeons, and he wanted to return with them all.
Orth’s success can be seen in the poultry barn. He had a number of placings, including this year’s grand champion and reserve champion pigeons. His granddaughter, Brinley, had the grand champion at last year’s fair. Another granddaughter, Jayden, also received several honors. Someday his toddler grandson, Hudson, will have pigeons at the fair, too.
But for Orth, it’s not about winning a prize.
“People haven’t seen birds like these,” he said. “We want people to know there are more than just pigeons that fly around and crap all over cars.”
No, these aren’t your flying nuisances. These are fancy pigeons – homing pigeons, racing pigeons, Birmingham rollers, helmet pigeons. There are many other breeds in several colors and sizes. One breed has curly feathers. Another is snowy white.
He used to race pigeons at a place near Medora. He goes to a pigeon swap meet in Missouri. He takes his pigeons to shows across the Midwest.
Pigeons are a passion that developed when he was in eighth grade.
“Then you grew up and girls didn’t like pigeons,” he said with a laugh.
Later in life, after he had kids and a place to put them, he began growing his flock.
“I got a couple birds and a couple more birds,” Orth said. Now he has more than 300 birds.
His wife doesn’t mind, he said. He has pigeons. She quilts.
His grandchildren, who entered some of the birds in the fair, come over and help him feed and water them, he said.
Pigeons are a food source in developing countries, he said. They are like eating a turtle dove. In the 1940s and 1950s in the United States, people could buy squab in a can.
During World War II, pigeons were used to carry messages, Orth said.
Orth said these days there is good money in racing and show pigeons. What he earns at the Kansas State Fair pays for his annual feed bill.
These are all things he tells folks when he is in the poultry barn at the fair. It’s like a zoo, he said. He works to educate the public about the state fair flock.
Orth does this every year. He enjoys it.
“People come in ’You know what kind of bird that is?” and I tell them.
— Amy Bickel
Peanut legacy
Ron Allen and his sons Jeremy and Heath, might have the healthiest, affordable and one of the oldest concessions at the Kansas State Fair.
On Friday morning, Mark Statzer stopped at their peanut concession stand to grab a $1 bag of roasted peanuts.
The Wichita resident says he stops at the booth every year.
“I’ve already had enough grease for the day,” Statzer said. “I need something calmer.”
The simple product hasn’t changed in 73 years, except they now sell salted and Cajun spiced bags of peanuts. The Allens keep bags of peanuts warm in a large heated metal barrel. They purchased 550 pounds of peanuts to roast during the 10 days.
“Peanuts sell,” Harold said. Though, he says, it has been a slow year for all the vendors in their neighborhood. “Warm peanuts sell best when the weather is cooler. ”
The Allens purchased the stand from Harold and Dorcas Tate — better known as Mutt and Pie. From 1944 to 1992, the Tate boot with its big barrel and shaded by an assortment of beach umbrellas was always the first booth on Pride of Kansas Avenue.
Mutt and Pie missed the 1993 fair due to health issues. Then in 1995, they sold the stand to the Allens.
“They sold it lock, stock and barrel,” said Jeremy. “Literally.”
Along with the barrel, they even included the original signs with the peanut man.
Both Dorcas and Harold have died, but their memory lives on in the State Fair Museum’s exhibit this year.
In the early days, the Tates sold peanuts for 5 cents a pint and 10 cents a quart; however, by today’s standards, a $1 for a bag of roasted peanuts is cheap. Allens also have a brisk business selling soda pop for $1.50.
The peanut booth is a family affair. While Ron is retired, Jeremy and Heath take vacation days off from their jobs to work the fair. Along with the three men, Ron’s wife, Colleen, helps with the booth. Plus Heath’s daughters, Taylor, 18, and Sydney, 11, help.
“They don’t know it yet, but it will be all theirs,” Heath said.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
by johnnymarin | Oct 9, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Q: I am not a hardcore outdoorsman, but I do enjoy a little dove hunting when the time rolls around each year. Typically, I get invited to a friend’s lease a few times a season and, thankful that the group I hunt with pools our take, end up with two or three freezer bags of birds when it’s all said and done. The problem is that my dove preparation, which consists of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a grill, does not impress the missus. At all. Do you have a favorite dove recipe with which I could better please my wife?
John Carter, Austin
A: Texas is blessed with both the largest population of dove in the country and, unsurprisingly, the largest population of dove hunters in the country. As such, it makes sense that Texans would consume a lot of dove. Equipping oneself with a good go-to cooking method is important, so the Texanist is glad to hear from you, Mr. Carter.
The bird of peace’s most succulent pieces are the breasts, but that succulence is, alas, relative. While doves themselves are bountiful, the same cannot be said of their bosoms, which are unimpressive in both their size and, if the Texanist is going to be honest, overall toothsomeness. Au naturel, dove are small, a smidge gamy, and wholly unsatisfactory as a standalone entree. If you were to serve the Texanist a plate with five or six scrawny bits of salt and pepper-seasoned dove and nothing more, he would be left feeling about as excited as your wife.
Thankfully, the Texanist has one word for you that will guarantee a more pleasurable experience for both Mrs. Carter and yourself. One delicious, mouthwatering word. And that word is—drumroll, please—bacon. Really, what’s not enhanced by way of a good old-fashioned bacon wrapping? Over the years, it has been the Texanist’s gluttonous delight to have consumed bacon-wrapped shrimp, bacon-wrapped asparagus, bacon-wrapped dates, and prosciutto-wrapped melon (The Texanist thinks of prosciutto as a type of Europeanized bacon). He is particularly fond of bacon-wrapped hot dogs, which are known colloquially in various locales as danger dogs, Mission dogs, Tijuana dogs, and when stuffed with cheese, francheezies or Texas Tommies. The Texanist has also heard them referred to as gout dogs.
And then there’s bacon-wrapped jalapenos, which are good, and bacon-wrapped jalapenos with cheese, which are delicious. Hey, the mention of bacon-wrapped jalapenos and cheese, in addition to making his mouth water, has reminded the Texanist that he was supposed to be working on an answer to an important question. Where were we? Ah, yes, dove. And jalapeno. And cheese. Wrapped in bacon.
Say hello to the Texanist’s World-Famous Dove Poppers.
What you’ll need:
- Dove
- Jalapeño
- Cheese
- Bacon
- Toothpicks
- Tequila
- Mylanta (optional)
How to do it:
- Take the jalapeño (the official state pepper of Texas) and slice it in two, lengthwise. Give it a rinse.
- Take a dove breast (the unofficial migratory game bird breast of Texas) and cut in half, lengthwise.
- Give these pieces the Carter treatment: olive oil, salt, pepper. Maybe a dusting of garlic powder, too.
- Cut the cheese (rimshot) into lengths similar to the jalapeño and dove. (The Texanist prefers Mexican cheese and has good results with queso fresco, queso blanco, queso cotija, queso Oaxaca, and has even used queso crema.)
- Combine the dove, the jalapeño, and the cheese, and wrap tightly with a half-slice of bacon, securing it with a tequila-soaked toothpick.
- Repeat until there is no more dove.
- Throw on a grill for a few minutes, turning occasionally, until bacon is sizzling and crispy.
- Gobble ‘em all up, washed down with the libation of your choice.
Additionally, it’s never a bad idea to augment the poppers with an entrée of juicy ribeye, sided with the sides of your choosing. The grill’s already hot, so might as well, right?
Bon appétit, Carters.
Now that’s a recipe that will not only satisfy the missus, but will, the Texanist bets, have her begging for more.
And please remember to stay safe, mind your bag and possession limits, and know your dove before you blast them out of the sky—the common ground dove, Inca dove, and band-tailed pigeon are off limits. Happy hunting. And happy eating.
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.
Contact Info: 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD (www.pigeonpatrol.ca)
