by johnnymarin | Dec 23, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
This summer’s wildfire season left both humans and their pets struggling in thick smoke – but the late haze that wafted through Squamish in September might have rerouted some professional pigeons from the Lower Mainland.
On Sept. 4, Harry Midgley noticed a small pigeon roaming his Cheekye front yard. The light grey bird had a brown and purple band on its neck and a small dark grey head.
The bird immediately took a liking to both Midgley and his motorcycle – it was happy to perch on his knee, foot or in his hands. A band around the bird’s legs with numbers and letters led Midgley to the website for the CPFA – the Canadian Pigeon Fanciers Association, which he contacted to try and track the owner.
In the meantime, Midgley brought out an old birdcage to protect the bird from predators, provided some seed and water and consulted a local Squamish Facebook group for advice on what to do with Homie – the name he gave the bird.
South of Midgley near Brackendale, Squamish resident Jessica Adams, and her children were being charmed by their own feathered visitor. They’d noticed that like clockwork, a grey-and-white pigeon with red banded feet would visit their yard.
“It was really hungry and thirsty on the first day, but it perked up,” said Adams. “I figured maybe it needed to refuel and go back to wherever it came from.”
For five days in a row, the bird visited at the same time each day, before flying off to spend the night somewhere else.
Adams’ four-year-old son dubbed the curious bird “Jailbird” because of the cuffs on its legs, while her daughter borrowed a water bowl and some turf from their pet rabbits to make it more comfortable.
Like Midgley, Adams took to Facebook to try and find the owner of the bird. A little shier than Homie, she had to take zoomed-in photos to try and read the numbers on the band.
Some people might call pigeons “rats with wings” but Adams said the little bird was a hit.
“My kids love the bird,” she said, joking that she might now keep pigeons instead of chickens. “It just hangs around the water bowl and eats— pretty cool little bird. This one is very sweet.”
Midgley and Adams assumed that the thick smoke stranded the birds in their backyards – whether breathing it in had tired out the small creatures, or perhaps the visibility had interrupted their navigating ability.
The local who runs the local NANA (Neighbourhood Animals Needing Assistance) group for the Sea to Sky said reports of lost pigeons in Squamish are fairly rare, especially compared to missing cats and dogs.
The social media page – which helps reunite lost pets with owners – has been in operation since 2016, but there have only been two submissions for lost pigeons.
Head to the city and the common rock pigeon, or Columa livia, isn’t hard to find. They’ll hang out anywhere that they might find a snack.
The birds are a little rarer in Squamish, but a small flock is known to hang out on warm days near the Howe Sound Brewery. The larger band-tailed pigeon is also seen in Squamish but is a species of “special concern” according to the B.C. government.
Keeping pigeons as pets, although a very old tradition, is becoming rarer and rarer in the province.
According to Dave Naylor, who lives in Langley, there’s only one person in Brackendale who still keeps the birds. Plenty of breeders and racers operate in the Lower Mainland, in the Interior, and on Vancouver Island, but no one keeps racing birds anymore in Squamish or Whistler.
“The smoke would have slowed them down a bit, probably had an impact on breathing as they were flying,” said Naylor.
He said pigeons from the city sometimes fly as far as Medicine Hat, and occasionally they go north through Whistler and back to the city. Adams and Midgley didn’t have any success IDing their birds, but Naylor said if they were racing pigeons, they likely came from the Fraser Valley.
Naylor doesn’t race the birds himself anymore, but his Langley born-and-raised pigeons travel across North America to compete in sporting events like the California Classic, the Holiday Cup, and the Triple Crown.
They can fly up to 300 miles in long races and are tracked by an electronic chip on their leg. Prizes awarded to winning birds can reach US$90,000. Naylor said pigeon racing is more popular than horse racing in California.
In Vancouver, it’s getting harder for the pigeons to find their way home.
Naylor said the re-introduction of the peregrine falcon has made the sport more difficult, and there’s also speculation that cell towers interfere with the birds’ navigation. Tougher municipal bylaws in cities, including Vancouver, have also made keeping the birds more difficult.
“The sport is diminishing, but it’s still fairly active on the island and in the Interior, but there are fewer and fewer clubs in the valley,” said Naylor.
Still, fancy pigeons and racers get lost often enough that the Canadian Pigeon Fanciers Association website has detailed instructions for what to do with a lost bird.
“The bird can be temporarily kept in a cardboard box with light and air holes cut into all sides while you are awaiting its owner,” instructs the organization, adding that bread should be avoided but seed and clean water will help the bird recover if it appears tired.
So if you see a lost pigeon with banded feet, stay cool. Most friendly fliers are just taking a break and looking for friendly humans to help out with some food and water.
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 | Dec 21, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
We are all familiar with the cautionary tale of the Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius — once the most abundant species in North America, and possibly the entire world. Numbering well into the billions at the peak of its existence, flocks of Passenger Pigeons flying overhead were likened to deafening hurricanes. It seemed unthinkable that this superabundant bird could go extinct.
Yet, it did. Unchecked hunting and the widespread clearance of hardwood trees, which provided the bulk of its diet, drove a steep decline in numbers in the late 19th Century. By the time we realised what was happening, it was too late to reverse the decline, and Martha, the last known Passenger Pigeon, died in captivity in 1914. This sorry tale serves to remind us that although many birds are classified as Least Concern by BirdLife on behalf of the IUCN Red List, if we ignore the warning signs, no species is immune from the threat of extinction.
In the mid-1990s, the observed decline of the Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureolain Hokkaido, Japan alerted conservationists that another super-abundant species might be in trouble. Now we know it has suffered a huge decline, possibly as much as 95 percent of its population, in the span of just two to three decades. Prior to 2004 the Yellow-breasted Bunting was not regarded as of conservation concern, but since 2013 it has been listed as Endangered, and this year the discussion on BirdLife’s Globally Threatened Birds Forum concerned a potential further uplisting to Critically Endangered.
The main reason for its decline is also comparable to that of the Passenger Pigeon: the species migrates in huge flocks, which are hunted in massive numbers. Again paralleling the Passenger Pigeon, the Yellow-breasted Bunting’s plight has been worsened by improvements in communication and transportation. The species gathers in large numbers at night to roost, making the birds easy to trap in high numbers.
The species is known as the “rice bird” in China, where it is hunted for food — a practice that has been illegal since 1997, but continues on the black market to this day. Such unsustainable and mostly illegal hunting on migratory passerines in Asia has pushed not only the Yellow-breasted Bunting to the edge of extinction; according to preliminary monitoring projects performed in Amur Region (Russia) and Hong Kong SAR (China), all migratory bunting species in eastern Asia are declining.
In order to address and confront this little-known crisis, BirdLife International co-organised an international workshop on conservation of the Yellow-breasted Bunting with the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society (BirdLife in China (Hong Kong)) and the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China in November 2016. The purpose of the workshop was to collect information and opinion for drafting an International Conservation Action Plan on the Yellow-breasted Bunting, and to form an international conservation network on this and other migratory passerines.
More than 50 experts from almost all major range countries attended the workshop. The main recommendations from the workshop were that the Yellow-breasted Bunting should be officially protected in all range countries, that its migration patterns should be managed using colour banding and geolocators, and that its breeding, migration and wintering sites need to be identified, surveyed, protected, and managed. It is also imperative to study the effect of agrochemicals on migratory passerines that use farmlands, and promote wildlife-friendly farming practices. International cooperation on the research and conservation of this species and other migratory passerines is necessary if we are to stabilise the numbers of Asia’s vanishing migrants.
The International Conservation Action Plan of the Yellow-breasted Bunting is expected to be published by 2019, as good consultation with different countries and stakeholders, including some regional and national workshops, are needed. However, important actions are already underway. In the breeding season of 2016, BirdLife International and Birds Russia conducted a preliminary study on the Yellow-breasted Bunting in Sakhalin, Russia. The result was alarming: it has seemingly disappeared completely from southern Sakhalin, and could only found at a few localities in northern and central parts of the island.
The next year, a joint team from BirdLife International, Wild Bird Society of Japan (BirdLife Partner) and Birds Russia visited northern Sakhalin and colour-banded eighteen Yellow-breasted Buntings so we could study its migration. Geolocators will be used in the breeding season of 2018 if the banded birds have proven they are returning to the same breeding sites.
This year, China has made a very positive move in saving the Yellow-breasted Bunting and other migratory passerine by enforcing a revised Wildlife Conservation Law. It outlaws the eating of protected species, which includes the Yellow-breasted Bunting. The key to success is higher awareness among the general public so they will refuse to buy the birds and report any illegal activities seen.
BirdLife International and the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society have produced a poster to support implementation of the new conservation law. BirdLife Partners will also support an education programme on prevention of hunting and wildlife consumption in all other range countries as the fight continues to ensure that the Yellow-breasted Bunting doesn’t become another cautionary tale for future generations.
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 | Dec 15, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
A missing bird of prey with a habit of landing on people’s shoulders has been found.
Mark Render, 25, from Washington, had stressed the Harris hawk would not attack residents or their pets.
“In the wild – this kind of hawk lives in the desert – they’ll sit on each others’ shoulders to get a better vantage point,” he said.
The bird was found by a dog walker in trees near Princess Anne Park and enticed down with a day-old chick.
Mr Render said his pet, Ares, was “normally friendly” but could be frightened of dogs and unfamiliar people.
Image captionThe hawk could have travelled miles in the two weeks he was missing, his owner said
He had offered a reward after the bird escaped from its enclosure when wind blew the door open.
The two-and-a-half-year-old hawk was bought for £350 as a young bird. It has a 1m (3ft) wingspan.
It is used to a diet of day-old chicks and quail but would hunt pigeons and rabbits in the wild, Mr Render 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 | Dec 13, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
This friendly pigeon likes to hug.
We all see a lot of pigeons around us every day; sometimes we do not notice them, sometimes we feed them, but maybe they need more than that.
On this unusual video footage, a man offers to embrace a pigeon. The dove does not think for a long time and accepts the offer. He enjoys cuddling with the man’s hand and he seems to like it very much. It turns out pigeons love to hug! Let’s see how it happened.
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 | Dec 4, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
A PIGEON racing fanatic fears his birds could be killed by peregrine falcons lured to nest on a Taunton church.
Nesting boxes have been placed on St Mary Magdalene Church to encourage a pair of falcons who roosted there this summer to return and breed.
The £7,000 project includes a webcam and is part of a nationwide effort to boost the protected peregrine falcon population.
But Michael Templeman, who has 40 pigeons in his garden loft in Wheatley Crescent, said it is causing “real concern”.
He said he has lost lots of birds to peregrines over the years and several disappeared following an attack in Taunton this summer.
Mr Templeman added: “Peregrine falcons perform savage and harrowing attacks on smaller birds such as racing pigeons, which is causing devastation among my community.
“If our birds are lucky enough to survive an attack, they become extremely disorientated, and if they’re injured it makes it impossible to train them. It’s truly heart-breaking.
“The fact there’s now a nest box at the church is a huge blow for myself and other fanciers in the area. It’s only a matter of time before our pigeons become victims.”
Lee Fribbins, of Pigeon Racing UK and Ireland, said peregrine numbers have risen since they were introduced into towns through nest boxes on high buildings.
He added: “Pigeon racing plays an important part in our country’s heritage.
“During both world wars, pigeons had a pivotal role in the success of the allies and the birds were the most decorated species of the conflicts.
“The sport also contributes almost £107 million to the UK economy every year and the fancying community provides substantial donations to many worthy charities.
“We need to make a stand to protect both racing pigeons and other small birds before they are lost forever.
“It’s imperative we investigate ways of controlling and managing the increasing population of predatory birds humanely.”
Taunton Peregrine project manager Michael Leigh-Mallory said racing pigeons are descended from the rock dove, which originally lived on cliffs, and has seen numbers shoot up due to increasing amount of food waste in towns.
“The peregrine is constantly having to adapt to an ever-changing and challenging world. It’s still a target for egg collectors and persecution and poisoning still persists,” added Mr Leigh-Mallory.
“We respect the freedom of pigeon fanciers to rear captive breed birds and fly them for sport. However, I’d hope they’d also respect the right of hundreds of others who support the project and gain enjoyment from seeing the pair of peregrines in the wild around Taunton.
“There is room for both in the skies above the town.
“The pair of peregrines are wild and have arrived at the church with no encouragement and in the event of St Mary’s not being available to nest they would select another rooftop in the area.”
He said figures suggest an estimated 2.4 million racing pigeons abscond every year and raptors account for a tiny percentage of pigeon losses.
And while there are 1,500 pairs of peregrines in the country, there are “many millions” of pigeons.
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 | Dec 2, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
You do not have to look far to see pigeons in Downtown La Crosse. A big price tag has been put on cleaning up the messes those pigeons are leaving behind.
Last Monday night, the La Crosse Board of Public Works approved $33,000 for pigeon waste cleanup.
“We have an issue with some pigeons roosting above the retail buildings in the Main Street Ramp,” said James Flottmeyer, Parking Utility Coordinator for the City of La Crosse.
According to Flottmeyer, the problem is more than 20 years in the making. The rooftops once separated from the ramp by a divider are now the place many pigeons call home.
“Over the years, they’ve pecked at the insulation to get in on top of the roofs,” Flottmeyer said.
The problem caught the attention of city officials this summer.
“When we had that big rain event at the end of July. Seven inches,” Flottmeyer said. “It caused some problems, because there’s enough of it up there when it got wet, then it gave off an odor.”
Aside from an odor, the pigeon waste poses health risks to people passing by.
“There are potential health issues with any concentration of animal droppings, including pigeon droppings,” said James Cherf, Owner of By James Gallery. “So, people should dispose of and handle those droppings in an appropriate fashion.”
The clean up is expected to begin at the end of the month. Crews will work to reseal the space between the parking ramp and the business roofing.
“The general public won’t notice the difference at all,” Flottmeyer said. “It’s happening in a confined space between the roof and the bottom of the ramp. So, the cleaning companies will come in, hose down the pigeon droppings that are up there to keep the dust down. Then, they’ll use brooms and shovels to haul it all out.”
With no clear timeline set, business owners hope the repairs are finished before winter hits.
“We are a small city in the middle of the wilderness, so we have lots and lots of food sources for pigeons outside of the city,” Cherf said. “When it starts getting to be more inclimate weather, a lot of these birds do come into our community to harbor.”
The cleanup is by no means a final solution, but it is yet another way the downtown community is coming together to address the pigeon population.
“It’s unrealistic to expect that we’ll ever be able to eradicate pigeons in our downtown area short of eradicating the species,” Cherf said.
This is the second year Downtown Mainstreet, Inc. is using the pigeon-feed contraceptive program to lower numbers of the local pigeon population.
Cherf reminds people that La Crosse does enforce a no feeding policy in city parks. Feeding the pigeons attracts them into the downtown area and encourages population growth. The no feeding policy also extends to squirrels and other wildlife.
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)
