by Ryan Ponto | Sep 4, 2016 | Bird Netting
DOWNTOWN — Racing pigeons, valuable birds trained to fly more than 1,000 miles in a clip to win huge prizes, are among the thousands of birds killed each year as they pass through Chicago.
Blame it on the skyscrapers.
The latest death came this week when a racing pigeon, identified by the band around one of its legs, apparently crashed into a building on Wacker Drive.
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, whose members pick up dead or nearly dead birds that have crashed into buildings, receives hundreds of calls each year about the racing birds.
The birds, unlike regular city pigeons, are banded around their legs and can travel more than 1,000 miles during events. The racing birds, raised in coops and fed by humans, sometimes get lost during races or meet an unfortunate fate when they slam beak-first into a city skyscraper.
Annette Prince, director of the collision monitors, said she’s recently fielded calls from people who have found dead, banded racing pigeons in Old Irving Park, Logan Square and Downtown. That includes the bird discovered dead Tuesday on Upper Wacker between State and Wabash.
“People are racing these everywhere,” Prince said. “They’re trained to come home, but they don’t always make it home. … These birds don’t find food or recognize predators like city pigeons do. If they get lost, they won’t make it. They’ll either starve or get injured.”
Pigeon racing is banned in Chicago, but that doesn’t mean the birds don’t fly through the city during competitions — either as part of the route or by getting lost. One Oak Park-based pigeon last year was blown off course by a storm but nursed back to health by an Indiana family.
Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the American Racing Pigeon Union, said “homing pigeons are always expected home … however, in dealing with nature, there are no finite certainties.”
“There are predators that have an eye for smaller animals such as other birds, small dogs, maybe rodents and other such animals,” Roberts said.
Roberts said her group has more than 600 clubs and 10,000 members (called fanciers) in the United States alone, and there are several other pigeon racing organizations across the country and worldwide. Roberts said the birds are “geniuses” in their own right, noting they can pick up sound from as far as a state away.
“They are amazing creatures,” she said. “To experience them in the racing hobby is to delve into nature unlike the typical activities of man.”
Racing pigeons are identified by bands with letters and numbers on their feet. The band on the pigeon found dead Downtown on Tuesday was not fully visible, but part of it read “AU 2016.” AU is the national organization that registered the bird, in this case the American Racing Pigeon Union; 2016 is the year the bird was hatched and banded/registered. Other information included on bands are letters representing the pigeon club the bird is registered to and numbers to represent each pigeon from that club.
Racing pigeons is a sport that dates to 1200 B.C., according to the Royal Pigeon Racing Association. The birds are descendants of rock doves, which were used by the Romans as messengers to fly more than hundreds of miles. In the 1800s, an official pigeon postal service was used in France, and the birds were used as messengers in World Wars I and II.
There are many theories about why the birds can remember long flights home,including a 10-year study from Oxford University that concluded pigeons use roads to navigate and can change directions at junctions. Other studies say the birds can remember visual clues like landmarks.
“These are amazing birds. They’re underappreciated. They’re smart. They’re great flyers. They learn things,” Prince said.
The hobby can be expensive. One Chinese buyer paid more than $300,000 for a racing pigeon in 2012. The top birds can win huge prizes, too — up to six-figure payouts. Some tournaments cost thousands of dollars to enter.
The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center estimates 365 million to 988 million birds are killed in collisions in the United States each year. In the area Prince and her network of 100 volunteers can cover, about 5,000 birds per year are picked up.
Hundreds of bird species migrate through Chicago every year, especially during thespring and late summer/early fall.
Prince would rather focus on the birds passing through the city because of migrations rather than a race.
“Hours and hours have to be spent answering hundreds of calls and trying to rescue these unfortunate birds,” she 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 Ryan Ponto | Sep 3, 2016 | Bird Netting
I’ve been spending more time around downtown Rochester this year and have become more aware of the presence of pigeons, particularly on and around many of the Mayo buildings. What strikes me as interesting is that there is no outcry about these birds like there is for crows.
Analyzing the habits of the two unrelated birds, I sense the pigeons may just be smart enough to stay under our radar most of the time. On the other hand, it seems like crows almost take the opposite approach and try to see how much they can aggravate us.
Pigeons are members of the family Columbidae, which also includes doves, with both names often used interchangeably around the world. Currently, the pigeons humans encounter most of the time are descendants of pigeons domesticated centuries ago, and they may go by the name rock dove or rock pigeon, depending on which way the wind is blowing the scientific birding communities.
Before they were domesticated, native populations of rock doves/pigeons roosted and nested on cliffs in Europe, North Africa, and western Asia. With tall buildings providing similar ledges and habitat, their move to the cities was a natural one, similar to American swifts switching from hollowed trees to chimneys, and thus being renamed chimney swifts.
Probably the most famous pigeon family members are a couple that are no longer around. Passenger pigeons, named for their migratory behavior, once numbered in the billions across North America. That was, until humans, especially Americans, proved we could quickly exterminate such a prolific species in the name of sport and food gathering.
A second, the dodo bird, was also exterminated by humans in short order when Dutch sailors landed on the Island of Mauritius around 1600. In less than a century, a bird that had evolved over millions of years to be huge and flightless became extinct.
The most famous pigeons still around are probably the homing pigeons, often called carrier or messenger pigeons. The homing pigeon is a variety of domestic pigeon selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances. Their interesting story is one which will unfold in a future Nature Nut column, possibly next week.
I keep wondering what urban pigeons feed on, and can only assume they find garbage, as well as seeds and other plant materials. They also will eat insects and earthworms. Besides cities, farmyards are another human area pigeons are found in large numbers, probably due to many grains and other seeds readily available.
Pigeons have been eaten, and still are, by many cultures, including Americans. Young pigeons, called squab, are considered a healthy delicacy to many, and in demand throughout the U.S. and worldwide.
Pigeons are eaten by many predators that visit our cities, including hawks, owls and falcons, as well as cats and dogs. I even saw a video of a turtle taking a pigeon on a pond edge.
Feral pigeons, I suspect in part because of their domestication by humans, are now found in cities throughout world. Some gather in famous squares, like that my wife and once visited in Venice, or places like the centuries-old Boston Common Park and Public Gardens, where we observed them earlier this summer.
In many places where they are accepted and even fed by locals and tourists, there are others who would prefer they were gone. Interestingly, in Rochester, where we have a pretty good population of pigeons, feeding them does not seem to have caught on, at least not anywhere that I have observed.
According to City Attorney Terry Adkins, there is no ordinance against feeding pigeons in public parks. So, perhaps the day will come when a pigeon feeding area at Central Park, Discovery Square, or elsewhere becomes a part of DMC planning, as everything else has.
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 | Sep 2, 2016 | Bird Netting
TULSA, Oklahoma – Despite harsh criticism, an Oklahoma senator will host his annual pigeon shoot fundraiser this weekend. That’s where live pigeons are thrown into the air for participants to shoot and kill.
One animal protection group says it will be there to protest.
‘Angel 6,’ a drone used by Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, is ready to take flight again after the group says it was shot down during Senator Jim Inhofe’s pigeon shoot last year.
“These guys are just out there thrill killing,” said SHARK president, Steve Hindi.
Hindi’s group uncovered video of Inhofe’s 2014 pigeon shoot fundraiser and posted it on YouTube.
“It’s a slaughter,” he said. “Birds hand-tossed in front of you, that’s worse than shooting fish in a barrel. There’s no sportsmanship.”
Inhofe held his shoot on private property last September. SHARK protested the event and sent in a drone to get video.
There are no FAA regulations against flying over private property; still, Hindi said someone in Inhofe’s party shot it down.
“They’re not afraid of us attacking them, that’s not what we do. They’re simply afraid of their own behavior being shown to the world,” Hindi said.
He said none of the pigeons are donated for their meat and said none of the event participants keep the birds for eating purposes.
Inhofe’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, said he appreciates that SHARK has a perspective, but said his camp isn’t breaking the law.
Jackson said there’s not a need for donated pigeon meat in the area where the animals are killed, which is near Altus.
He said, “Altus is not a really big place, I don’t believe there was much interest in that.”
Jackson said the Inhofe camp prefers to ignore groups like SHARK.
“Their claims that’s it’s animal abuse or illegal is just false,” Jackson said. “We don’t take them seriously, I think they’re pretty extreme. They protest rodeos, too.”
The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife says live pigeon shoots, while not common, are legal in Oklahoma.
The birds aren’t native to the state and they’re not protected by the government, but that won’t stop SHARK showing up with its drone to protest once again this weekend.
“We’re an animal protection organization and this shoot has to stop,” Hindi 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 Ryan Ponto | Sep 1, 2016 | Bird Netting
OTTERVILLE — When Don Bryant was 11 years old in Belleville, while riding his bike home from school he saw a group of pigeons fly over his head, which led him to his mentor.
Impulsively, he followed the birds to the home of Clarence Haymann, who as his mentor, started Bryant, now 83, with his first pair of pigeons.
After his first pigeon pair, he got another pair and started raising squabs, or baby pigeons, until he had six or seven pair. He spent time with people who raised and raced pigeons to find out how they did it, what to feed them and how to race them himself. His first loft was in the back of his parent’s chicken coop.
“It amazed me how pigeons could find their way home from hundreds of miles away,” marveled Bryant, who has had a cottage in Chautauqua for almost 50 years. “A combination of an extremely accurate internal ‘sun clock’ and magnetic fields enable the birds to return home.
“My best friend, Kenny Borsch, became interested in pigeons, too, and we started training young birds. We were too young to drive a car, so we wired boxes to our bicycles and rode three or four miles to let the birds out to fly home. After awhile, we talked Kenny’s grandfather into driving us 10 miles away to train our birds.”
Bryant built his first loft from lumber he got from a construction site where they were building a bridge.
“I talked the boss into giving me the lumber. They were going to throw it away and I built the loft myself,” he recalled.
Homing pigeons were introduced to the United States in the mid-1800s. In the 1880s, the first 500-mile race took place in this country. Homing pigeons race from 80 to 600 miles at speeds of 40 to 60 mph, over terrain they have often never seen before.
Pigeons have long played an important role in war. Due to their homing ability, speed and altitude, they were often used as military messengers. Carrier pigeons of the Racing Homer breed were used to carry messages in World War I, World War II and the Korean War. They ceased being used as of 1957. They saved thousands of lives while in military service.
Bryant loves long-distance flying. His pigeons fly 100 to 600 miles. When he was 13, he flew his pigeons in one of his first races, which was a 500-mile race. He should have won, but his lack of knowledge caused him to lose first place. He didn’t realize you needed to watch your loft to clock your bird in, the minute it returns to the loft.
He went to the movies instead and didn’t clock in his bird until the next morning. His bird was second, but would have won if he had clocked her in when she returned to the loft. He doesn’t remember the movie he saw, but he never forgot the valuable lesson he learned: stay by your loft.
“To raise money, I had to shine shoes, haul ashes and cut grass to support my pigeons,” Bryant said.
When Bryant enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1951, he gave Kenny all his pigeons. When he came out of the Navy, he met and married his wife, Lynn Schleicher, and raised a family. He didn’t raise pigeons for a number of years.
He began his career in real estate in 1966. He didn’t raise or race pigeons while he was becoming one of the top Realtors in the Riverbend and building his own business — Don Bryant’s Gallery of Homes. He sold his business in 1983.
When he became interested in flying pigeons again, he went into it in a big way. He has four lofts in Otterville, with a partner, Tim Widowski. Two of the lofts are breeding lofts, one is a racing loft and the last loft is for his special birds. Their loft is named “Union Forest.”
The loft has two 15-year-old Houbens and two Stuart Browns. They are the foundation of Widowski and Bryant’s lofts. In all, Bryant and Widowski have more than 100 birds.
“Our birds are great. We carefully breed and train them in order to raise the best birds,” Bryant said.
There are two 10-week periods of racing every year. Old birds fly from April through June. The youngsters start racing in mid-August and fly until mid-October.
Bryant has been very successful in racing his pigeons. His pigeons have won in old-bird races in the last two years: Champion Bird Illinois twice, Champion Loft twice, Master Loft twice, Average Speed in 22 races and National Award 15th in the United States in 2014. The award Bryant is most proud of is that, in 2015, of his bird “Sissy Jane,” which placed second in the United States in the National Ace Old Bird Marathon Distance Standings.
Homing pigeons have pedigrees like racehorses. They are bred and trained with the same care bestowed upon their equine counterparts. Some international races award large cash prizes. Purses can be as high as $600,000. Racing pigeons have sold for more than $260,000 each.
“Being an American and my wife and family are the most important things in my life,” Bryant said.
Bryant and his wife have one son, Chuck Bryant, and two daughters, Donna Minard and Sally Voorhes. Bryant is still busy building and remodeling houses.
“At 83, it keeps me young,” Bryant declared.
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 | Aug 31, 2016 | Bird Netting
It’s official: the hunting season is here again and in certain parts of the country a select few are out hunting bear and sheep and deer. The majority of us, however, are getting our first taste of the hunt with doves. I’m not a great dove hunter, although I’m not exactly to blame. During most of my lifetime, we didn’t even have a dove season in Minnesota. Fortunately, that changed some years back, and now every September 1 I get to head out in hopes of seeing a dove. I say “in hopes of” because dove numbers where I live are not great. You can find them and, on occasion, you can get a shot. But we still don’t have dove hunting in Minnesota like they do in other states.
There are places like Yuma, Arizona, where dove hunting is such a big deal that the local high schoolers hold a fundraiser in the form of a drive-thru dove cleaning station. For $5, the high school band will clean your limit of doves. And, when they are done, you can take your limit to any number of restaurants where they will cook up your birds for you. Just once in my life I would like to experience dove hunting on that level.
For now, however, I will just be happy to get out and see if I can shoot my two or three doves and hopefully get a small meal out of them. While I’m out there, I keep my eyes open for another bird: one that used to be a popular game bird, but that has caught such a bad reputation many people would never consider eating them.
Pigeons are all over the place here in farm country. They live in barns and silos and most farmers will let you come in a shoot a few. Pigeons are a little bigger than doves and equally tasty, in my opinion.
Like doves, pigeons can be prepared in a number of different ways. If you have enough pigeons, you can put together a really nice dinner. Juniper-roasted doves with a cherry port sauce is one of my favorite ways or you can make them just like doves into poppers with a little cream cheese, jalapeño, and bacon.
For these squabs, I am tweaking a Jamie Oliver recipe for a fried squab with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. The pigeons are rubbed with Chinese five spice and then fried whole. It doesn’t take long to fry a whole bird, and you end up with a very tender breast and crispy salty skin. Give pigeons a try, if you haven’t yet—you might be surprised at how good they are.
Spice Rub
2 tablespoon of kosher salt
2 teaspoons Chinese five spice
1 teaspoon black pepper
Small pinch of cayenne for heat
Combine the ingredients and rub it on the inside and outside of the squabs. Let sit out for 30 minutes before frying. Heat oil (I used peanut oil but just about any oil would work) over medium-high heat until oil reaches 350 degrees. Lower the squabs whole in the oil so they are completely submerged. Cook for 4-5 minutes—four if you want some pink in the middle of the breast and five if you don’t. Pull the birds out and set aside to drain and cool. While they pigeons are draining make your sauce.
Sweet and Sour Dipping Sauce
Juice of one lemon
Juice of one lime
¼ cup oyster sauce
2 tablespoons of Sriracha
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 clove of garlic minced
Combine all ingredients, mix well and serve with fried squabs.
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)
