by johnnymarin | Apr 24, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
Dozens of pigeons used that dormant time to grow their families in Paseo’s rafters. They’ve claimed the best seats behind home plate, and they’ve marked them to warn anyone who dares sit there.
“While the crews work on repairing the Paseo Stadium to make it safe, it’s the perfect opportunity to get rid of those birds,” said Jon Cramer, recreation administrator for the Department of Parks and Recreation.
He’s fielded many offers of help from people with small-caliber firearms, slingshots and even darts. He continues to decline each one.
“There will be no projectiles, no shooting, nothing like that. We will simply encourage them to move somewhere else,” said Cramer. “There’s a hollow line that runs down the length of the beam, where the pigeons roost. We’ll fill it with spikes and they won’t want to live there anymore.
“And, hopefully, these birds won’t come back.”
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 | Apr 23, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
National Geographic has dubbed 2018 the year of the bird.
In its March issue, it focused on such amazing mysteries as the epic journey of the bar-tailed godwit, which flies nonstop 7,150 miles from New Zealand to Alaska during its migration.
Helena writer, Jim Robbins has kept an eye to the sky for years, sharing similar fascinating feathery facts.
An international spotlight has been shining on both him and his book, “The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future.”
The book, published in 2017, recently won the Montana Book Award from the Montana Library Association, which will be presented in April.
This coming week Robbins gives a talk, “Celebrating a Writer’s Journey,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, at Lewis & Clark Library.
He will also present a pre-event workshop from 5 to 6 p.m. April 3 at the library, when he will discuss his writing process.
Interestingly, birds have played a role in Robbins’ life since his initial journey West after college.
While searching for a new hometown in the 1970s, Robbins and his wife found a nest of baby birds they fed with an eyedropper — that is until a fateful and fatal intervention by a cat.
Robbins, a science and environmental writer who has written for the New York Times and authored or co-authored five other books, just returned from a trip to Australia earlier this month. He was a featured writer at the Adelaide Writers Festival.
He was also featured in a Planet Talks interview as part of the global festival WOMAD, World of Music and Dance.
And he appeared on several radio shows and twice at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, which hosts author and artist discussions before large audiences.
During one of these, “Feather Permitting: Jim Robbins on Birds,” interviewer Sean Dooley hailed Robbins’ book as a “wondrous read,” adding that perhaps it could be the spark to help awaken public interest in saving birds and the planet.
To get a sense of the magic and wonder birds bring to our world, one need look no further than Robbins’ account of the humble pigeon.
While some see only the nuisance of pigeon droppings, Robbins sees pigeons “at the heart of what animal geography is all about.” He calls them “the closest soul mate” from the the bird world that humans have.
Their companionship with humans stretches back as far as 10,000 years.
He writes: “There’s an important story behind this tough little streetwalker scrambling for crumbs in the gutter. …These birds learn much the way children do, and their vision and perception are uncanny.
“They can tell the difference in painting style between Monet and Picasso.” They’ve aided the Coast Guard as sentinels to find shipwreck survivors, served as couriers for centuries, and worked for the military carrying messages. One even earned the Croix de Guerre military honor in World War I for saving 194 soldiers.
Perhaps this feathery, rugged urban dweller could awaken in human minds and hearts a personal relationship with nature.
“The love for the urban pigeon…may play a key role in stanching the disappearance of global biodiversity.”
Human lives intertwine with that of birds in strange and wondrous ways.
They alert backyard birders and scientists to the health of the planet.
They have played a powerful role in helping some people heal and transform their lives, such as tough urban youths who discover the wonders of falconry.
And they are offering startling insights into bird consciousness or “megamind,” which could be what brings thousands of birds together in flocks and then take flight to migrate.
“I’m a little uncomfortable being in the spotlight,” admitted Robbins over coffee during an IR interview last week.
But he’s looking forward to his upcoming talk about birds and also his workshop on the writing process.
“Longevity is a key to being successful,” he said of his career, “and pushing through the obstacles. That’s where you learn. I’ve had lots of failures.”
He welcomes the attention his books and writing bring to the mysteries and miracles of the natural world.
Prestigious researchers and publications are praising Robbins’ book.
“A must-read, conveying much necessary information in easily accessible form and awakening one’s consciousness to what might otherwise be taken for granted . . . ‘The Wonder of Birds’ reads like the story of a kid let loose in a candy store and given free rein to sample. That is one of its strengths: the convert’s view gives wide appeal to those who might never have known birds well.” So wrote Bernd Heinrich in The Wall Street Journal.
“Engaging, thoughtful . . . This work is worthy of a place alongside David Attenborough’s documentary ‘The Life of Birds’ or Graeme Gibson’s ‘The Bedside Book of Birds.’ . . . Of wide-ranging significance, this offering will appeal to naturalists, anthropologists, linguists, and even philosophers as well as to lay readers,” wrote the Library Journal.
In an IR interview last year, Robbins said “There’s a lot of undiscovered aspects of birds. The theme of this book is how little we know about all this. There’s so much in the natural world that’s unrecognized…it’s remarkable how little we know about the world.”
He said this theme has actually run throughout all his books.
And it is once again the focus of his new book project that is in the works — but can’t be revealed at this time.
“Every time I write a book, my life is changed somehow,” he said. “One of the things that propels me to write books is that good writing can change people’s perceptions of the world. That’s what I’m trying to do.
“I’ve had people tell me that ‘this book changed my life.’”
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 | Apr 21, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
Vast sums have been spent on state-of-the-art infrastructure sparking widespread fears that the host nation will milk the competition for propaganda purposes.
Calls for a boycott and the creation of an alternative event grow in volume.
You could be forgiven for thinking this is a reference to Vladimir Putin’s Russia hosting the World Cup this summer but it was also the situation that prevailed more than 80 years ago in the run-up to the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin – only on that occasion one country had the moral courage to boycott Adolf Hitler’s showcase for fascism and set up its own alternative.
It was a noble endeavour but one that was destined to fail in the most dramatic fashion.
By 1936 the Führer had been in power for three years. Anti-Semitic policies had been introduced that banned Jews from marrying non-Jews and nor were they permitted to be employed as civil servants, practise law or occupy public positions.
They released 25,000 pigeons. They circled overhead and then they shot a cannon and they scared the poop out of the pigeons
An “Aryans-only” policy was instituted at all athletic organisations and only one token Jewish competitor was allowed to join the German Olympic team.
Meanwhile, no expense was spared when it came to preparing for the Games.
Hitler commissioned a new 100,000-seater stadium, six gymnasiums and many smaller arenas and gave his favourite film-maker Leni Riefenstahl what was then a massive budget of £5million to record the event for posterity.
Once it became clear that Berlin would be a propaganda pageant, campaigns to boycott the Games surfaced in the US, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands.
But once the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States narrowly voted to participate in December 1935, almost all the other countries fell into line.
Only Spain, which voted in a Left-leaning Popular Front government in February 1936, and the Soviet Union, which refused to participate in the Olympics on ideological grounds until 1952, ended up boycotting Berlin.
Not content with simply withdrawing their athletes from Hitler’s Games, the Spanish decided to attempt to steal the Nazis’ thunder by organising a competition of their own.
Called the Olympiada Popular, or People’s Olympiad, it advertised its liberal credentials via a poster featuring images of three athletes: one white, one black and one mixed race.
The Catalan capital of Barcelona was the ideal city to host the competition as it had already built all of the facilities required for the 1929 International Exposition seven years earlier, including a 56,000-seater stadium.
Spain scheduled its Olympiad for July 22-26, which meant it would end six days before the Nazis’ spectacle got under way.
Given the political character of the Popular Front many of the athletes were sent by trade unions, workers’ clubs and associations, socialist and communist parties and Left-wing groups, rather than by state-sponsored committees.
A UK team was organised by the British Workers’ Sports Association.
In a press release sent out a month before the event, it said: “Arrangements for the British team to compete in the Barcelona Peoples’ Olympiad are fastly [sic] gathering pace; at least 30 participants will travel. Athletes, boxers, cyclists and swimmers are expected to go over, and rowers may possibly be included, along with table-tennis players.”
In the end, a total of 6,000 athletes from 22 nations registered for Barcelona, which brought the start date forward by three days to the 19th to accommodate the surprisingly large turnout.
The largest contingents came from the US, UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Czechoslovakia. There were also some political exiles from Germany and Italy. Even the Soviet Union sent a team.
One of the most high-profile athletes to commit herself to the cause was Canadian high jumper Eva Dawes.
She had won bronze in the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932 and silver at the British Empire Games two years later but refused to go to Berlin.
Dawes, who later married an Englishman and died in St Helens in 2009 at the age of 96, travelled to Europe on the SS Alaunia but never got further than Toulouse in south-west France.
She was about to board a train for Barcelona when the British consul informed her that the Spanish Civil War had broken out.
On the very day the Olympiad was set to begin, the army began its rebellion against the government, athletes woke to the sound of gunfire and the Games were over before they had begun.
An article from the time laments: “It is impossible for us to calculate our sports prowess before the world because the javelin has had to be exchanged for a rifle, the discus for a hand grenade, hurdles for parapets and trenches, foot races for military marches; likewise, our joy has slipped towards suffering, and outside attraction was derailed by horror, tourism by invasion, and light, love and life by gloom, hatred and death.”
However, not everything went smoothly for Hitler’s jamboree either.
One of the more extravagant elements of the opening ceremony involved a massive flock of birds.
US distance runner Louis Zamperini takes up the story: “They released 25,000 pigeons. They circled overhead and then they shot a cannon and they scared the poop out of the pigeons. We had flat straw hats and you could hear the pitter-patter on them. But we felt sorry for the women – they got it in their hair. There was a mass of droppings – it was so funny.”
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 | Apr 20, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
New York’s self-proclaimed pigeon “vampire” could be back in the city’s parks slurping up bird blood very soon, thanks to a sweatheart plea deal.
Daniel Ventre – who terrified tourists last summer when he bit the heads off two squawkers in Bryant Park to guzzle their blood – agreed to resolve his litany of pending cases Tuesday in exchange for just four months in jail.
Though prosecutors and his defense attorney were previously said to be working on a treatment-based deal, no mental health or drug treatment was was ordered as part of the plea.
Ventre, who’d faced up to a year behind bars for decapitating the pigeons and pouring the blood down his front as he exclaimed, “I’m a vampire, I love to eat and suck the blood out of pigeons. I’m Ozzy O sbo u rne,” most recently ran afowl of the law in January.
A s legend has it the former Black Sabbath frontman Osbourne bit the head off a live dove at a meeting in Los Angeles with record executives.
The wannabe Ozzy Ventre was arrested for threatening suicide by subway third rail, traipsing around the B and D line tracks at the 42 Street/Bryant Park station, carrying a bottle of vodka and wailing about “equality” and “social justice.”
Ventre, who Tuesday copped to charges of animal abuse, trespass, marijuana possession, and petit larceny, has been arrested some 40 times.
In the days before his subway stunt, the bloodsucker claimed on Facebook to have consumed human bodily fluids during a recent stint in the “drunk tank.”
“The cop s brought me to the drunk tank at Bellevue hosp and they tied me down and restrained me after I started biting of f the rubber stoppers off of blood tubes and drinking random peoples blood samples,” Ventre wrote.
“Thankfully nobody had anything I could catch.”
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 | Apr 19, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
I write in response to your correspondent Chris Higgins, who wrote to you (Letters, March 8) regarding the pigeons in Winchester city centre.
Pigeons can cause problems in city centres and Winchester is no exception. There are a range of measures the city council can employ to deal with the problem, but we are looking to fully understand the extent of the issue before deciding which steps are likely to be the most effective. We are currently identifying specific problem areas and assessing where pigeons are having the greatest impact.
Options to address the issue include cleaning areas where pigeon waste accumulates, pigeon proofing buildings, using of birds of prey, acoustic alarms and traps and providing feeding areas in appropriate locations. It may be that a combination of these actions will provide the best way forward, bearing in mind that we are dealing with an historic town centre which is a conservation area with many listed buildings and scheduled ancient monuments.
Whilst the city council is prepared to address the issue, there is an opportunity here for others who have an interest in our city to help – whether they own a building, run a business or visit the shops. Owners can take appropriate steps to deter pigeons from roosting on their premises, businesses can ensure that they manage their waste properly – particularly where they sell food, and shoppers can avoid feeding birds and dispose of their rubbish responsibly. The situation could improve significantly if we work together.
We are developing a plan to ease the situation, building upon the work we have already been carrying out in relation to commercial waste storage in the city centre. However, we are keen to encourage others to support these measures to help ensure they are effective.
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 | Apr 18, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
Rene Hoppenbrouwers is Director of the Stichting Restauratie Atelier, Limburg (SRAL), Maastricht, the Netherlands, which specialises in conservation and restoration of paintings. SRAL also does research, consultancy, and education programmes. Mr. Hoppenbrouwers, who is in the city for a workshop on ‘Preventive conservation for museums’ , spoke about the Napier Museum, conservation of museums, and what lies ahead. Edited excerpts from the interview
Tell us about your impressions of the Napier Museum
It is a beautiful historic building. It is interesting that it was built as a museum, as a lot of museums are located in buildings that were intended for other purposes. And nearly 150 years later, it is still functioning as a museum.
I hope when they focus on renovation of the structure, the old vitrines (glass display cases) and cabinets inside are respected and they don’t put new vitrines in, as it will clash with the historicity of the building.
What are your observations about the object display?
It is nice that in some showcases, they have LED lights which do not emit UV rays or have temperature problems, but some vitrines have old fluorescent tubes which need to go. That is easily addressed.
As the museum is in a park, the vitrines offer extra protection to the objects against the natural environment. Then there is the pollution and monsoon. So it is good that most of the things are behind glass and protected.
The pigeons flying around. They probably come through open spaces in the roof. Pigeon dropping may cause corrosion of objects. This needs to be seen in the context of affordable and long-term solutions for object display. So if one wants ventilation, a gauze can be put in front so that big insects, pigeons, or bats can be kept out.
Tell us about the Indian Conservation Fellowship Programme
At a conference of the International Council of Museums – Committee for Conservation in New Delhi, I suggested exchange programmes and those for teaching, as India has a rich wealth of culture and ideas. Nine institutions agreed, and over time, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New York, came on board. Eighteen fellowships were provided to people across India during the pilot project of two years.
And now, it has been extended up to 2021, to provide 45 fellowships, and also exchange exhibitions between the Metropolitan Museum and India.
The fellowship will cover people from national museums and from INTACH chapters. The idea was that the conservators could go back and transfer their knowledge and experience to other people in India.
Can you shed light on the conservation workshop here
Besides the exchange programme, we wanted to conduct courses on preventive conservation for larger groups of people at least once a year. We have held two workshops in Delhi and Kolkata, but wanted to reach out to south India and the east too so that people from different regions benefit. This is a form of capacity building for museum managers and museologists.
Your takeaway from the workshops
Young people have the drive and want to go forward with heritage conservations. They are very clever and eager to pick up information.
It is also important that we don’t impose regulations and rules, as we learn as much here as the other way round. And I take these home and try and put them in practice there. It is both give and take.
In your presentation, you spoke about inadequate museum storage, even in the Netherlands
Museums mostly focus on displays and exhibitions as they need more people to come in and need private funding as the governments do not provide enough money. So they don’t concentrate on storage.
One solution could be regional centres where museums without good storage space store all their objects that are not on display. There could be a small restoration laboratory alongside. Such collection centres are there in the Netherlands and Singapore.
These could be open to the public too so that they can see what the conservators do.
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)
