by johnnymarin | Nov 30, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Starting on May 7, 2016, every weekend evening through midsummer saw the artist Duke Riley setting fly two thousand pigeons from atop an old battleship in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Fitted with tiny LED lights, they traced graceful illuminated meanders in the gathering night, before a bell rang them back to their coops. Fly by Night was one of Riley’s typically ambitious interventions, this one completely legal — a commission by Creative Time — as opposed to, say, the time in 2007 when he immersed a homemade spherical submarine of Revolutionary War–era design in New York Harbor and piloted it within yards of the Queen Mary before an armada of law enforcement fished him out. “The FBI didn’t think it was so funny,” he remembers of that episode. “They still have some kind of open file on me.” He was eventually able to get the sub back.
Riley, 45, is known for spectacular ventures with elements of poetry and provocation, usually staged in liminal zones where city meets water and sky: a chaotic naval joust between improvised vessels in a reflecting pool in Flushing Meadows Park; a temporary tavern full of drunk revelers built on swampland off the Belt Parkway. These enterprises tend to make news, as did, for instance, the time in 2012 when Riley set homing pigeons with Cuban cigars in tiny harnesses to fly from Havana back to their home in Key West.
Riley traces both his maritime and his avian interests back to his childhood, which he spent around Boston and on Cape Cod. He remembers hanging around a pigeon club in the Dorchester area: “It looked like a sports bar, but instead of pictures of athletes on the wall it was just pictures of pigeons,” he says. When he moved to Providence to attend the Rhode Island School of Design, he lived in a house with pigeons. He became a tattoo artist there as well, a practice he continues on occasion. But his formal subject at RISD was painting, and he later earned a master’s in sculpture from the Pratt Institute, setting up a studio art practice that is just as integral to his work.
Riley’s current exhibition at Magnan Metz is a two-parter: A large temporary space across the street from the gallery displays new work, made in the wake of Fly by Night; and in the gallery itself is a mini-retrospective of past pieces and project artifacts, including his original submarine. The show lends aesthetic grounding and context to the performance-style works, and tinges Riley’s rapscallion energy with introspection and melancholy. “The studio practice is extremely important to me functioning as a human and artist,” Riley says. Wearing his trademark fedora, he’s made it back to the gallery despite a hangover from the show’s opening party the night before. “Starting with a blank piece of paper and creating another world — even when the projects are happening, it’s an important part because I’m thinking.”
In the past year, those thoughts have turned brooding, related to the presidential campaign and outcome. “A lot of the work has to do with the political climate in the months following Fly by Night, when I was dismantling the show, then moved my birds back onto my roof in Red Hook,” he says. The connection was a feeling of threat. Late fall and early winter is when pigeons are most vulnerable to raptors, after migratory birds are gone and small animals have entered hibernation, Riley explains. “And the time when all these hawks were around was just after the election.” In more ways than one, predation was in the air.
Riley processed his feelings in a series of elegant paintings, presented in the manner of a naturalist’s almanac, of the raptors that threaten pigeons in New York City: goshawk, peregrine falcon, red-tailed hawk, and Cooper’s hawk. He made tile mosaics that depict raptors clutching pigeons as they swoop skyward. “Everyone in the pigeon community respects the course of nature, but even so, when you work with these birds you realize that they’re sentient beings that have feelings,” he says. “They establish relationships with other birds. They’re these beings that are terrified of the hawk. I was thinking of that stuff, and the feeling of trying to protect the people, and protect your loved ones.”
One of Riley’s signature large-scale drawings, which abound in references and riotous detail, presents the Navy Yard battleship with its upper strata rendered as a kind of Tower of Babel, featuring, amid much else, different varieties of pigeon coop architecture used around the world. The ship was a refuge, he says: self-contained and moored at the Navy Yard, itself a secluded space, all within New York City, which for all its faults remains an open-minded place. “It has always been a place of greater tolerance, as most port cities throughout history have been,” Riley says. In one area of the drawing, amid the mermaids and fish and assorted flotsam found in New York’s waterways, hammerhead sharks are attacking robed Ku Klux Klansmen, an allegory of resistance and revenge.
The exhibition’s centerpiece is a series of nearly one thousand portraits in profile of pigeons, each identified by name, breed, and their flock or owner from among the city’s die-hard subculture of pigeon fliers. The portraits are made of fabric embroidered via a computerized process, then stretched over canvas and hand-painted, so they are precise likenesses of members of Riley’s flying armada. (An album of photographs of all two thousand pigeons, yearbook-style, is on hand for those wishing to verify.) A few of the pigeons were veterans of Riley’s 2012 Key West project. Most were borrowed from other fliers and returned afterward. Riley retains around two hundred birds near Red Hook. He flies them in the late afternoon, for a work break with his assistants. “We call it pigeon o’clock,” he says.
Riley titled this show Now Those Days Are Gone, and while the reference is kept vague, the elegiac feeling is impossible to miss. It can apply to the national climate, and just as well, Riley hints, to a mid-career taking of stock. “I wouldn’t call it activism, but most of the work I’ve done has a sense of optimism about what is possible, of empowerment,” he says. “After [Fly by Night] I needed time to think about how I was looking at things, and whether some of the methods I’ve used in the past even make sense.”
It can apply, as well, to New York City and the piers, marshes, and estuaries that Riley has explored for years, semi-wilderness zones that invigorate a city’s culture, not just its ecology. In 2012, Riley’s stained-glass pieces commissioned by the MTA went up at a Rockaway subway station just before the Sandy storm; one panel depicted bungalows swept out to sea. Since then, waterfront development continues unabated around the city, squeezing out the remaining cruising sites, artist’s squats, and assorted ungoverned areas. For Riley, this is a loss. “I think it’s intrinsic human instinct that people are drawn to the sorts of spaces where water meets land, these abandoned urban areas where you can operate outside the constraints of society,” he says. “A city needs to breathe.”
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 | Nov 29, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
A mystery Brummie spent £60 sending an injured PIGEON from Aston to a wildlife sanctuary in Nuneaton – by taxi.
Shocked sanctuary owner Geoff Grewcock said the centre received a call to say that an injured animal would be arriving in a cab from the city – a distance of 25 miles.
The kind hearted woman had even sent a donation to the Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary – as well as paying £60 for the pigeon’s journey.
Stunned Geoff said “it goes to show what loving, caring people there are out there”.
“It was incredible,” added Geoff, who has run the sanctuary for 16 years.
“The woman had sent the pigeon in the back of a taxi, on its own, from Aston to us here, and even sent a donation for us as well, I could not believe it.”
He explained that the animal lover had found the injured pigeon and taken it along to the PDSA in Aston.
“They said that they would have to put it down but she said ‘No, you are not’,” he explained.
“That’s when she phoned us here. She told us that she would be sending it in a taxi, and she did. It was marvellous, it just goes to show the lengths that some people will go to care for animals, it is incredibly kind.”
He has admitted that he has seen some sights during his time at the animal haven, but none like the arrival of the injured bird at the weekend.
“It was strange knowing a taxi was coming with a pigeon in the back but it goes to show what loving, caring people there are out there,” Geoff added.
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 | Nov 28, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
The Division of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Office of Animal Health & Industry, conducted a livestock and poultry survey for producers of cattle, swine, goats, poultry, ducks, pigeons, turkeys, rabbits and deer on Saipan.
CNMI state veterinarian Dr. Ignacio Dela Cruz noted that two survey teams were created to conduct the survey in the event of any disaster affecting the CNMI where a meaningful and effective disaster response and coordination could be mustered and achieved.
“The survey conducted showed the following number of animals on Saipan: 377 heads of cattle, 999 swine, 170 goats, 4,840 chickens, 196 ducks, 212 pigeons, 4 turkeys, 2 rabbits, 16 deer. With this information, a realistic disaster planning, preparedness and response could be worked out. Supplies, materials, animal feeds and pharmaceutical needs for poultry, livestock and other farm animals could easily be made available because the numbers are there and are current to work with,” he said.
Dr. Dela Cruz added that there are a total of 49 producers, ranchers and farmers in which 22 represented cattle raisers and 36 swine producers, 19 raising goats, 18 raising ducks, 38 raising poultry, 9 raising pigeons, 2 raising turkeys, 2 raising deer and 1 raising rabbits with only one producer, Saipan Egg & Poultry, operating a commercial egg laying operation with about 2,000 layers.
“Of the 22 cattle producers, 7 were leasing government land to raise their animals which varied from 1 to 25 hectares with a total of about 62 hectares of government land being leased to raise cattle. The above numbers are combined numbers of all the animals in each category, regardless of sex or age. Obviously, this does not present a clear picture of Saipan’s farm animal populations. The numbers also do not represent the total animal population within each category and more detailed classification and wider coverage must be planned and worked out,” he said.
Dr. Dela Cruz added that in the case of an outbreak such as an incursion of FMD or foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza, exotic Newcastle disease or classical swine fever or hog cholera, reliable data on farm animals is needed.
“A decision to vaccinate, depopulate or to treat the target animals would be more efficient because we would know how much vaccine or medicine would be required, or in the event of depopulation or an eradication effort, the decision whether to incinerate, bury, landfill or do composting would be easier to reach or make because they would know how much mass or animal carcasses they would be dealing or working with,” he said.
Acting Secretary for Lands and Natural Resources Augustin Kaipat expressed that the next survey will be made to separate the animals by sex and age groups.
“The survey was started and completed in September. The work was not all-inclusive of the available farm animals on Saipan and a more comprehensive survey will be undertaken hopefully in the next year. We thank Dr. Dela Cruz for initiating this survey and our team members Robert Magofna, Joe Takai, Manny Quitano and Ben Cabrera,” Kaipat 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 | Nov 27, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
The council recently carried out a major overall of Forum Square and the Westgate shopping centre entrance with newly planted trees, paving, seating and performance spaces.
But some local and national media including the Sun carried reports criticising the council for installing spikes to keep the pigeons off the trees.
The council has hit back at the criticism, and issued a statement saying: “We are piloting some pigeon prevention methods across the town, along with a stop feeding the pigeons campaign, because they can cause mess and disease.
“This is a standard anti-pigeon measure used in towns and cities across the country. On shops, trees, churches, all sorts of places.
“They do not hurt pigeons, but deter them from roosting in a particular area.
“We aim to deter pigeons from roosting in the town centre, including this area where people sit outside to eat and drink on new benches and outside coffee shops.”
It added: “Pigeons can cause mess and transmit serious diseases including meningitis, E-coli, Salmonella and Listeria.
“These spikes were already in place on shop canopies in Stevenage and around the country, and have been for many years. We added these new ones after improving the square this summer with new benches, lighting and trees.”
But the town’s Conservative MP Stephen McPartland has hit back at the decision, saying: “It’s completely stupid.
“Trees are there for birds to use, but this is typical of the idiocy of Stevenage Borough Council. These trees have been there for years, they’ve never needed spikes before.”
In the advice it issues about living with pigeons, animal welfare charity the RSPCA mentions a number of methods of preventing them from landing including wire structures, netting and spikes.
On spikes, referred to by the RSPCA as ‘spines’, it says: “Anti-perching devices, such as spines, are considered to be one of the most humane ways of trying to minimise the problems these birds can cause. The spines are usually angled so that they are awkward to land on but will not impale the bird but some may also be designed to bend but be firm enough to provide an uncomfortable perching or roosting place for the bird. However, it is vital these are installed appropriately by trained professionals and inspected regularly.”
The RSPB gives advice on its website including: “Ledges can be protected by fitting specially designed spike strips or metal coil, or converting the ledge to a slope.”
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 | Nov 26, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
FROM changes to aerodrome laws to questions about city water pressure, the Toowoomba Regional Council’s Tuesday committee meeting was filled with vital updates for residents.
The Planning and Development, Water and Waste and Infrastructure Committees were run at the council chambers this morning, with the final three portfolios held tomorrow.
All items will then be reviewed at the ordinary meeting next week.
1. Aerodrome law changes
Unusual incidents at aerodromes in the region, including homing pigeons and abandoned aircraft, have pushed the council’s infrastructure committee to rip up its previous local laws around the spaces.
Aerodrome operations manager Barry Wicks introduced the new legislation to the council, which he said were brought on to plug gaps in the previous laws that had been exposed over the past six years.
“The new draft Local Law No.6 (Aerodromes) 2017 has been prepared to better align with the current operating environment and management practices of the aerodromes controlled by the Toowoomba Regional Council, and to provide greater clarity about these practices than is contained in the current local law,” he said in the report.
The councillors were informed that various events since 2011 had exposed the limitations of the previous local law, No. 39 (Public Aerodromes).
“For example, in 2012/13 difficulties were encountered in dealing with homing pigeons released for daily exercising directly beneath the approach to Runway 11, and removal of an abandoned aircraft which had sat on the airfield for over 15 years,” the report said.
Cr James O’Shea said while the council always used education and negotiating as a first point of call, the new laws allowed people to be penalised if their activities infringed on an airspace.
2. New water pressure minimums
THE issue of “minimum water pressure” to new developments was a strong discussion point in the committee meeting this morning.
The council voted to amend the Planning Scheme Policy No.3 to include updated minimum water pressure levels for new property developments, increasing from 22ml to 30ml for residential proposals and from 25ml to 35ml for commercial land.
This however was revealed to be merely a recommendation that the TRC will suggest to developers, with the state-mandated minimums remaining the same (22ml and 25ml).
Cr Nancy Sommerfield, who has received complaints from residents about Toowoomba’s water pressure, said the council had no power to force developers to follow the new minimum water pressure guidelines.
“It’s our desire that they go with these minimums, but we’ve got no teeth in it,” she said.
“If they want to hook and set up this new development, if the capacity is not there to deliver these new minimums, they have to pay the council to upgrade the infrastructure.”
3. New housing lot numbers plummet
THE number of new and sealed lots approved by the Toowoomba Regional Council fell to 12-month lows, according to the latest report on development approvals.
Just seven new lots were approved and 18 sealed in August, compared with eight and 213 in July, while house and unit applications also dropped off.
“During the same period 108 new houses were constructed, indicating a higher lot consumption compared to new lots released,” Planning and Development general manager Stewart Somers said in the report.
In other news, the value of building approvals has steadily increased since September last year, and now sits just over $50 million.
4. Boost for farmers moving large ag equipment
LANDHOLDERS who need to use council roads to transport over-sized agricultural equipment like harvesters received a leg-up thanks to a new council framework.
The infrastructure committee approved the changes this morning, which would make it easier for farmers to apply for permits to move vehicles short distances on council roads.
The need for new laws was flagged back in 2015.
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)
