by Ryan Ponto | Jan 13, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
TOWN bells have historically been a part of our culture as one of the earliest ways to call people together or warn of imminent danger.
Before the advent of telephones and social media, the bells would call us to work, prayer and sound out celebrations for special events.
Even when the telephone took over as the first means of spreading information, the bells helped everyone keep time, and ensured a town ran smoothly.
As such it was an important job and it lay with the timekeeper.
Fifty years ago in Haddington, that job fell to 62-year-old William Barber, who, reported the Haddingtonshire Courier in 1967, was facing a particular problem with lazy pigeons.
The town clock, often relied on by the townsfolk, was being knocked out of time by pigeons who apparently had taken to resting on its hands.
Mr Barber revealed that their favourite resting place had become a problem.
He said: “Often a pigeon will land on a hand which is going down and the weight of the bird will make the clock go fast, but if the pigeon is sitting on the hand while it is going up, it will more than likely stop the clock altogether.”
Haddington Town Council’s attempts to deter the pigeons saw netting introduced to try and keep them away, but it quickly deteriorated as the pigeons used it for nests.
Mr Barber must have seen it all in his years as the official timekeeper of the town clock.
At the age of 62, he had climbed the steep stone stairs into the steeple every week for 27 years to wind up the weights which drove the hands, correct the faces and clean any obstructions.
He took over the mantle from his predecessor James Pringle, a well-known Haddington watchmaker and jeweller, when he retired, having studied at his side for a number of years, learning all the old clock’s idiosyncrasies.
The Town House, from which the clock tower rises, was built in 1748 and designed by William Adams. The steeple itself was added in 1830 and designed by Gillespie and Graham. As late as 1967, it involved some heavy work to keep the clock in check.
Working on the same principle as a grandfather clock, the weights were suspended on steel hawsers and winding them up was not as simple as turning a handle. Instead, they used machinery adapted from agriculture to move them.
And the clock itself had its own clock – a small electric one which controlled when the faces of the larger clock were lit up.
Mr Barber revealed that pigeons were far from the only problems faced as he tried to keep time for the town.
He said: “The clock is not terribly accurate but it is unusual in that it strikes the quarter, half and hour. There are not so many town clocks that do this. Besides the pigeons, there are many other factors which dictate whether the clock goes fast or slow. The weather can affect the clock badly. Quite often snow or ice sticks to the face and stops the hands from going round.”
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 | Jan 12, 2017 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent
DOWNTOWN — Sarah Thompson knows she’s not alone in her appreciation of Chicago’s massive pigeon population.
“Most wildlife runs away when you’re near it, but pigeons will just walk next to you, and they don’t care,” said Thompson, the creator of “Chicago Pigeon Society” Facebook group. “You’re able to watch them while you’re close to them.”
Thompson, a former Lakeview resident who works in the Gold Coast, created the page in mid-2013 simply because she’s “always liked pigeons.” Her group has only a handful of members, but there are at least two other Facebook pages devoted to pigeons in the Windy City: “Chicago Pigeons,” which has more than 1,000 followers, and “Pigeons of Chicago,” which has a few dozen.
The “Chicago Pigeons” administrator declined to comment, while the admin for “Pigeons of Chicago” did not respond. Both of those pages, like Thompson’s, feature photos of pigeons flying, hanging out and feeding on Chicago’s streets.
Thompson’s favorite pigeons are the ones who chill at Connors Park near her office in the Gold Coast. She visits the park during the work week around lunch time.
“Sometime people feed them, even in front of a sign telling them not to,” Thompson said.
Thompson said a pigeon landed on her head once as she waited for a bus on the North Side. But that experience didn’t faze her in the least.
“I like that they’re not afraid of people,” she said. “They’re kind of underappreciated. People think of them as pests, but I think they’re interesting.”
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 | Jan 11, 2017 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent
NEW CUMBERLAND — While the sight of pigeons may be nice to some, for others, including city officials, it has created cause for safety and structural concern to some of the buildings.
The topic of pigeons was discussed during last week’s City Council meeting. Several dozen of the birds often are spotted sitting along rooftops of buildings and other structures throughout the city.
Mayor Linda McNeil said she has often seen the pigeons — on one occasion numbering close to 100 — waiting for food. She also acknowledges the risk of structural damage to buildings, along with safety and health concerns, for residents due to the pigeons.
“There are, probably the last time I looked at them and saw them, there’s probably a hundred pigeons roosting on top of a building waiting to be fed,” McNeil said. “And they go down to be fed and come up and they wait until the next feeding.
“In the meantime, they roost on that one building and neighboring buildings, and it causes property damages to the roofs and to cars, and it’s just a big health concern.”
McNeil said council will need to look into ways to have property owners and landlords be more responsible in preventing the property damage and health issues due to the pigeons.
In a separate matter, but related to safety issues, council is in the process of creating a new ordinance, which requires an occupied residence in the city to have electric, gas (or both), water, trash pick-up service and sewer service.
“There are buildings here that have people living in them who sometimes have no water, sometimes use generators for their electricity, and for safety issues, we have to assume our responsibility in creating this ordinance and saying, ‘If there is an occupied residence in our city limits, it has to have electric, gas or both, water, trash pick-up and sewer service.”
McNeil said in the ordinance, in the early stages, building owners and landlords can face fines for being in noncompliance.
Meanwhile, another building that was brought up for discussion was right down the road the funeral home, that being the current New Cumberland Municipal Building.
Prior to serving as headquarters for city hall, the building served as the former New Cumberland School — which housed classes for students in first through 12th grade — and had been taken over by the city following the school’s closure, with many of the rooms rented out to businesses.
McNeil said council will need to make a decision regarding the building’s future noting the upcoming departure of the Hancock County Board of Education.
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 | Jan 10, 2017 | UltraSonic Bird Control
HYDERABAD: The blue rock pigeon, one of the commonest birds in urban areas, has been given notice. At least at the main entrance of the KBR National Park in Banjara Hills. Every morning and in the evening, a man armed with a stick stands guard there and drives the birds away from the driveway outside the park gates.
“It is my turn to do this job now,” says Sridhar, a guard at the park, who otherwise patrols its pathway that is popular with morning and evening walkers.”We used to have hundreds of pigeons here, but now this place is clean,” he says, pointing to the cemented stretch with pride. “Yesterday, I asked sweepers (employed by the municipal corporation) to clear this place of droppings. See how clean it looks today,” says Sridhar, beaming with pride after a job well done. “We paid them extra money , given by our officials.”
KBR National Park has been for some time a favourite spot for people to feed pigeons, with nearly a couple of thousand birds converging at the gates. “The situation was getting out of hand and there were even complaints from road users that when the birds flew in large numbers, they were obstructing traffic,” says district forest officer Vinod Kumar. “So a decision was taken to try and get the place clean again.After all, hundreds of people come to the park for morning and evening walks and runs, and we cannot put their health in danger.”
Explains senior veterinarian and former ‘zoo doctor’, M Naveen Kumar, “Pigeons in large numbers are known to carry bird influenza (bird flu) and even avian tuberculosis.While bird flu is passed on to humans, in case of avian tuberculosis, it is a two-way street. Humans catch it from birds and birds can catch TB from humans.”
But with no studies ever conducted in Hyderabad on the health impact of large congregations of blue rock pigeons on humans who come in close contact with them, Naveen says the case so far is of “noth ing reported, nobody both ered”.
Studies like the one pub lished in the Indian Journal of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology by Shrikant Deo and nine other researchers in 2014 establish that feral pigeons are “reservoirs and potential vectors of a large number of microorganisms… causing infections and allergic diseases that can be lethal.” The 2014 study says that direct contact with pigeons is not required for humans to catch such diseases. “Pathogens can be transmitted to humans mainly via excreta, secretions, or dust from feathers spread in the environment.”
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 | Jan 9, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
Faunal extinctions are calamitous events. There is something tremendously unsettling about the passing of a species into oblivion, especially if there are local implications.
Such was the case with regard to the passenger pigeon, which officially became extinct a century ago. Historically, the bird was a prominent part of Ontario’s avifauna. Anecdotal evidence confirms it occurred in Ontario in enormous numbers.
Accounts of its historical abundance defy belief. In the 1840s, it comprised fully 40 per cent of the entire total bird population of North America. It bred in 45 of Ontario’s 55 counties, often at communal rookeries comprising tens of thousands of nests.
There is astonishing eyewitness evidence of its staggering numbers.
“A grand migration of passenger pigeons (took place at Niagara-on-the-Lake) including a flock one-mile wide and 300 miles long … that took 14 hours to pass by,” reported a soldier at Fort Mississauga in 1860.
In 1832, flocks of passenger pigeons migrated over Toronto for four consecutive days and Royal Ontario Museum records indicate the smallest of the flocks comprised 500-600 individual pigeons.
According to C.J.S. Bethune, in 1858 he encountered a 10-acre stubble field “literally blue with pigeons so thick that one could hardly see the ground.”
A huge pigeon rookery along both sides of the Speed River, from Guelph to Rockton, in 1835 had so many pigeons that “trees were broken down by the weight of the pigeons … (and) wagonloads were shot for food,” a local historian confirmed.
In addition to several rookeries in Oro-Medonte, a profusion of reports illustrate immense flocks at Blyth, Huron County, at Goderich, at Sunnidale, Simcoe County and in Guelph.
At Clearview, near Lake Huron, “vast clouds that darkened the sun” were reported in the mid-1850s. In 1870, pigeons were so plentiful that one market gunner reported he shot “400 before 10 a.m.”
Apparently, people back then thought the pigeon population was inexhaustible. According to researcher P.H. Ehrlich, “the birds were netted, baited with salt, shot at nests, clubbed, live-trapped and later shot in competitions … pigeons were sold for food for 50 cents per barrel.”
One market gunner reported he shot three million pigeons over a 30-year period. In 1878, at a Michigan pigeon rookery, 50,000 were shot each day for almost five months, according to Pete Petosky a former Michigan Department of Natural Resources official.
Eventually, the pigeons could not withstand the relentless slaughter.
The last surviving rookery in Ontario was confirmed near Kingston in 1898 (20 birds and 12 nests). Two specimens were collected at Toronto in 1890 and the last confirmed Ontario specimen was shot by Otto Reinecke near Niagara Falls in September 1891.
The last wild adult in North America was shot in Illinois on March 12, 1901.
Three captive passenger pigeons survived in the Cincinnati Zoo a few years later: one died in April 1909, another in July 1910 and the last living passenger pigeon (Martha) died on Sept. 1, 1914.
All that remain of the billions of passenger pigeons that once darkened the skies over North America are 1,535 skins and 16 skeletons.
Passenger pigeons were about 15 inches long. They fed on fruit, nuts, berries and seeds. Scientists think it might be possible to re-create the species using advanced DNA technology.
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)
