by Ryan Ponto | Dec 21, 2016 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Children or tourists feeding pigeons in Istanbul’s famous Eminönü district is an iconic scene of the city. On weekends, there is another place where pigeon fanciers from across the city come to see or buy pigeons at a bazaar in the city’s Edirnekapı quarter, which is sure to amaze expats
Many of the less fortunate tourists in our fairy city of Istanbul miss the more interesting things, perhaps, because they are not in the right place and the right time. Sultanahmet features various transport links, including a tramway and a big bus route, and is only a fifteen minute walk from a train station and a dock — it also has fairly good publicity. A vast visitor’s infrastructure draws in the tourists and keeps them there with ice cream, Turkish tea, hookah and köfte (meatballs).
If you wind your way to the outskirts of the old city, the limits of historic Istanbul, you will find a less-trafficked but no less impressive site: the Theodosian Walls. The Byzantine emperor Theodosius rebuilt his city’s fortifications — as even the oldest things in city had to be rebuilt — in 447 after they collapsed in an earthquake.
Currently, the walls are used by nearby cafe owners the same way they use canopies or heat lamps. Along their entire 7-kilometer length, only a few displays and signs are present to orient visitors. No ice cream, no hookah and no Turkish köfte can be seen, but only a few cafes — and of course you can find Turkish tea. The old city walls are an under-visited (and let us not forget, entirely free) area, where you can spend an entire Saturday afternoon. Next to them, the street markets of Balat and Fener offer a different atmosphere to the jaded stroller of the Istanbul neighborhoods.
One of my very favorite day trips is to go to a section of the venerable standing stones and clamber all over them or explore the neighborhoods lying in their shadow. My university friend Zoey was in town and I was determined to show her a slice of the city often missed by big-ticket tours. We selected Edirnekapı because a few weekends ago my friends Orkun, Harriet and I had explored the other half of the walls all the way down to Yedikule.
Unknown to us, Yedikule was closed, so though we were able to walk through the cemetery near the Kazlıçeşme metro stop to get to the seven towers, we found the iron door bolt shut. We peered in through the gaps and saw a courtyard littered with gravel and a few upside down “Giriş” (Enter) signs. We walked around to the opposite side where a Roma neighborhood had been erected against the walls. Then, an old man emerged with a long branch. He hunched at the end of the road and encouraged us to leave. We walked across a bridge and found the Yedikule Dog Park, where the city takes care of dogs, providing shelter and vaccinations.
So, we decided to go to Edirnekapı. I used to work out at a music school near the Chora Church, and so we formed a loose plan to wander on top of the walls, pop by the church, and round off the day with a stroll through Balat and Fener. We hopped off the metrobus at Edirnekapı, where an enormous cemetery surrounds the highway.
Why are there always cemeteries in between the bus stop and the walls? Commuters streamed through the sacred grounds. We had to scramble across a highway to get to Edirne gate, but finally we emerged. It is strange, as an American, to see this ancient stone structure incorporated into the trappings of daily life, side by side with cafes and small houses, with stacks of firewood and construction materials leaning against it.
We began our walk alongside the Theodosian Walls. I was disappointed to discover that they had fenced off the stairs to the top. Several years ago I was able to climb to the top and get a panorama view of the city. This is, however, probably better in terms of historical preservation. We walked down the street, keeping the tall yellow stone on our left. We got to a soccer field where a few old men were hanging around selling songbirds. They asked me if I wanted to go in.
“Where?” I asked.
“To the bazaar,” they said. “It’s 3 liras.”
I paid for three tickets for all of us. Inside was a hundred men, only men, wandering between rows of brown cages on stilts. Everywhere, pigeons. Pigeons on strings, pigeons preening, pigeons stretching, pigeons scrambling for seeds, pigeons with squat fluffy feet, pigeons with lascivious pink beaks, pigeons with floofy necks, pigeons with different splotches of color on the tips of their wings, pigeons that looked like dwarfs, pigeons that looked like giants. I had no idea there were so many varieties of pigeon in the world.
One man with a thorny white beard thrust a pigeon at us. “This is a Baghdadi pigeon,” he said. I’d forgotten the word for pigeon in Turkish, which is “güvercin” and it snapped me out of my reverie.
“What do you use them for? Do you eat them” I asked. No, no, he shook his head. But he also didn’t answer the question. We stopped in front of a row of cages staffed by a fat kid. “It has to be really expensive right,” Zoey asked. “Right?” I asked how much it would be for one of the boy’s slender white pigeons with the purple neck.
“Ten lira,” he said, every inch a businessman. We all looked at each other, and I forked over 10 lira. He forked over a pigeon. What do we do with it? The old man next to the fat boy found it immensely funny that three foreigners, two of them women, had bought one of his pigeons. I found it immensely funny as well, but also immensely weird.
We left the cage of the bazaar in the soccer field. We named the pigeon Geronimo. What were we going to do with it? My friend, Harriet observed that the pigeon’s wings hadn’t been clipped, so we decided to find a good spot and set it free. We walked through a bunch of local streets where kids in dirty clothes played soccer in the street and pink shirts had been hung out to dry in every window. Geronimo seemed sedate, very zen about the whole experience of being clutched.
We let Geronimo go near a mosque and he flew to the top of the minaret. All of us tried to process the experience. I still have no idea why dozens of men breed pigeons (They probably have a serious devotion to them) and sell them on Sundays near the Edirnekapı exit of the city walls. But I can tell you often, tourists miss the more interesting things.
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 Ryan Ponto | Dec 20, 2016 | Bird Netting
Scottish Parliament hawks to remain to control pigeons Hawks at the Scottish parliament. Picture: PHIL WILKINSON 10:11Monday 02 January 2017 1 HAVE YOUR SAY SCOTTISH Parliament bosses look set to carry on flying hawks and falcons at Holyrood to scare away pigeons – even though they accept the number has come down as much as it is ever likely to. Birds of prey were brought in eight years ago as a deterrent after other measures such as bird wire, netting and anti-roosting spikes all failed. A year ago, the parliament said the £16,000 a year contract was due to be reviewed and the Evening News revealed Holyrood bosses were considering ending it. Monthly monitoring had shown there were between 11 and 18 pigeons regularly on the Holyrood campus and officials felt it may not be possible to reduce it any further. But no review has yet
taken place and now the parliament says the future of the contract with NBC Bird and Pest Solutions will only be looked at when the bigger high-level maintenance contract, of which it is a part, comes up for renewal in October 2017. And despite the previous suggestion that the use of birds of prey would probably come to an end, parliament officials now say it is likely to continue. But MSPs questioned why Holyrood should carry on paying out money if the hawks have now done their work. The pigeon problem plagued the Holyrood building right from the start with its many nooks and crannies proving attractive perches. Muck and feathers were blown through vents on to researchers’ desks and some birds even got into MSPs’ offices. Monthly monitoring reports for the past year, released under freedom of information, no longer give average totals for the number of pigeons counted at the Holyrood campus but do highlight hotspots, particularly the MSP block. Some of the politicians working there urged a review. Lothian Tory MSP Jeremy Balfour said: “If the contract runs out this year, it is a good time to review the whole situation. Just to renew it automatically would be a mistake. “It’s quite a lot of money and if we have reached the optimum number [of pigeons] and the situation cannot be made any better, it is not the best use of public money. I will write to the chief executive and seek clarification of the position and ask if we have now got as much as we can out of it.” And Lothian Green MSP Alison Johnstone also urged a review. She said: “It’s important we know how effective this spending is. We should not continue with a contract that costs £16,000 a year unless we are clear it is proving effective. “The evidence base must be available and I would welcome site of it to help parliament come to a decision as to whether or not this ongoing expenditure should be continued.” A parliament spokeswoman said there were no plans to end the NBC contract early. She added: “Like many buildings in Edinburgh, a small number of pigeons visit regularly. We are aware the problem can never be fully eradicated and it is likely we will continue with the current approach.”
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 Ryan Ponto | Dec 19, 2016 | Bird Deterrent Products
ABOUT 300 Colchester racing pigeons were involved in secret service work in Occupied Europe during the Second World War, a little-known fact faithfully reported in Hervey Benham’s book Essex at War which recorded what happened between 1939 and 1945.
This remarkable aspect of the war is described by Mr Benham as follows: “Let the pigeons’ part not be overlooked.
“Twenty-two Colchester pigeon fanciers played behind the scenes their part in the winning of the war.
“Prior to 1939 these men trained their birds for show purposes and for racing, but when in April 1943 a Special Section Carrier Pigeon Service was formed, efforts were wholeheartedly turned towards war.
“Mr Arthur A. Finch, of 12 Speedwell Road, Colchester, was appointed Pigeon Service Officer for the Colchester Section, and Colchester fanciers supplied approximately 300 birds for special secret service work in Occupied Europe.
“Several were used by the Maquis and gave the exact position of flying bomb sites.
“Several of the 300 birds never returned, many being wounded.”
The “Maquis” was the name given to members of the French Resistance against the Nazis. Pigeons would be smuggled into Occupied Europe in boxes dropped by parachute at pre-arranged locations.
These would be picked up by the Resistance who would then put messages in small containers fitted to the legs of pigeons which would then fly home to their loft in Britain, 22 of which were in Colchester.
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 Ryan Ponto | Dec 18, 2016 | Animal Deterrent Products
If one thing was vital to the the new kind of modern warfare in the First World War, it was communications.
The Industrial Revolution had brought wireless transmission of signals with it and the huge armies of World War 1 needed to be in contact constantly to be successful in the field.
In this special episode we introduce you to the birth hour of modern military communication and signals.
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 Ryan Ponto | Dec 17, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent
Summary: Having lost their expensive birds to theft, many say that police seldom pay attention to their ‘pigeon theft’ complaints. A rash of racing pigeon thefts across the city have left many breeders high and dry. But cases where the stolen birds were in large numbers, it is considered a serious crime. Many instances over the last few weeks had shown that there was very little help from police in rescuing the birds, breeders said. Even if the police manage to apprehend the thieves, the task of proving ownership of the birds is onerous.
Even if the police manage to apprehend the thieves, the task of proving ownership of the birds is onerous. — File photo | Photo Credit: R_Shivaji Rao more-in A rash of racing pigeon thefts across the city have left many breeders high and dry. Having lost their expensive birds to theft, many say that police seldom pay attention to their ‘pigeon theft’ complaints. For years now breeding of exotic birds has been lucrative business for professional breeders.
However, of late, protecting these birds from thieves has become a difficult task. Many instances over the last few weeks had shown that there was very little help from police in rescuing the birds, breeders said. According to them, police authorities have their hands full with law and order cases and seldom show any interest in recovering the stolen birds. R.T. Venkatesh, a resident of Marai Malai Nagar, has been a bird enthusiast and a breeder for several years.
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)
