It’s National Bird Day today, and here in Scotland we boast some of the most stunning and diverse wildlife on the planet.
Our nation’s animals come in all shapes and sizes and today we look five of the most interesting birds that can be found in Scotland.
Don’t worry, we’ve left the brazen Glaswegian pigeons and those pesky Aberdonian seagulls off the list – this is only for the elite of the avian species.
Puffin
These beautiful creatures are often considered the “clowns of the air” due to their mismatched appearance.
The puffin can grow to around 18 inches tall and boast a black and white body, white a pale white face and brightly coloured bill.
If you want to spot them then head to the Isle of May, Anstruther .
Red Kite
Red kite’s are easily identifiable due to their large size, with a wingspan of almost 2 metres, and reddish-brown colouring.
The bird was successfully reintroduced to Scotland where it can now be seen soaring the skies across our bonny counry.
Capercaillie
The capercaillie may not be one of the most dangerous birds on our list, but it is one that is synonymous with Scotland.
Unfortunately, this woodland bird, which is the largest member of the grouse family, is now endangered and is facing possible extinction.
The capercaillie can be spotted in the pine forests of the Cairngorms , the Highlands and Perthshire .
Golden Eagle
This massive bird of prey thrives across the Scottish Highlands and Northern Isles.
The golden eagle mainly hunts rabbits, hares but is also known to catch foxes, young deer and grouse.
Osprey
The osprey have a wingspan of around 1.5m and are a seasonal visitor to our country.
These powerful brown birds can be found Scotland’s pine forests and lochs where they mostly hunt fish.
You better time your bird-spotting trip though as, like many of us wish we could do, they migrate south for the winter.
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.
“When we were shooting for the song, there is this one sequence where there are a lot of pigeons. There is a shot when I turn and the pigeons fly around me. So getting the scene right was very difficult because they had to put pigeon food on my hand before the shot.” Aww, Poor Dippy! She further added, “And these twenty five to thirty pigeons would come and sit on me and before the camera rolled, I could see all these pigeons crawling on my hand and by the end of it I’d have little scratches on my arm. But that was a lovely experience as I am pretty frightened about these things.” On the work front, Deepika Padukone will be next seen in Padmavat and if things go well, buzz is there that the film is all set to hit the theatres on Februray 9, 2018.
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.
Although many of us may think that hawks are birds that like wide-open spaces, the Cooper’s hawk has become very good at living in cities and towns.
This medium-sized hawk has broad, rounded wings with a very long tail. The tail is rounded and the head appears large. Adults are blue-gray in color. They look a lot like a sharp-shinned hawk.
The birds do well in cities because they like to eat medium-sized birds. Cities often have plenty of pigeons for the hawks to feast on, as well as birds at feeders, but they will also eat robins, pheasant and grouse as well as bats, squirrels and mice.
Cooper’s hawks grab prey with their claws and squeeze it until it dies, often catching other birds while flying through the trees. One study found that because the birds fly so fast through places with lots of trees, many have broken bones by striking branches.
In New Mexico a study found that Cooper’s hawks who lived in town had an advantage over those who lived in the country. During the winter the country hawks would fly south. The city hawks stayed around because they have plenty of pigeons to eat.
When the spring mating season comes around, the male Cooper’s hawk will look for a good place to build a nest. If the male lives in the city, he’s more likely to find the best places for a nest because he doesn’t have to compete with his country cousins, who haven’t flown back north yet.
That’s meant that there are more city birds spreading out into the country, which scientists found unusual. They normally think of a city as a place that would need birds from outside to keep populations strong. Just the opposite is true with wily Cooper’s hawk.
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.
A man was left stunned when he saw the bird slumped between the bonnet and the windscreen with its head resting against the glass on January 1 – just hours after people around the world had knocked back countless bottles of booze to celebrate the beginning of 2018 – with what appeared to be a hangover.
The gentleman filmed himself as he walked up to the pigeon – on what is thought to be his car – to see whether it was dead before he stroked its feathered in a bid to bring him round to consciousness.
As he prodded the bird, he said: ”Brother, c’mon brother. Wake up, bro! Hey, brother.”
The pigeon then appears to wake up from his daytime nap before flying off into the distance.
Kremlyovskiye kleptokrati commented on the video, writing: ”Like the French say: Pigeons are flying rats. I bet he pecked the vomit of people who celebrated new years, this is how alcohol hit its tiny brain.”
While Igor Orlov said: ”Poor bird, it is simply ill.”
Ermolov added: ”People, stop judging others by your own standards.”
It’s not known whether the bird was injured, sick or was simply resting.
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.
Our power to send a species into oblivion was first documented in 1598 when Portuguese sailors landing on the shores of the Southeast African island of Mauritius, discovered a previously unknown species of gigantic pigeon, the dodo, Raphus cucullatus, so named for its lack of fear of men who killed them. Another aspect of their demise were the confounded rats that deserted the ships and came ashore to help eat native animals and plants into extinction.
Having been isolated from contact with humanity by its island location, the immense pigeon waddled over and greeted the new visitors with a child-like innocence. The sailors, however, mistook the gentle spirit of the dodo, and its lack of fear for stupidity and dubbed the bird “dodo” (similar to simpleton in Portuguese).
Because the bird was larger than our Thanksgiving turkey — but far easier to catch — hungry sailors killed them by the tens of thousands and those that survived the sailor’s appetite had to face introduced rats, cats and dogs.
Dogs, pigs and rats carried-on ships soon became feral after being released into the Mauritian ecosystem. Due to the sailors meat-hunting and predation by introduced animals, in a mere 83 years, the last dodo was dead.
The world was left worse with its passing.
As one of the earliest recorded examples of modern eco-vandalism, the impact of the Portuguese sailors on Mauritius not only wiped out the poor old dodo, but also further disrupted nature in unexpected ways. Soon after the dodo became extinct, the Mauritian “calvaria” trees seeds stopped sprouting and it appeared it would soon face extinction itself. Apparently, calvaria seeds would only germinate after passing through the dodo bird’s digestive system.
You’d think with the story of the dodo bird as an example of our ability to wipe out a species we would have been more sensitive to our responsibilities. The fate of the passenger pigeon proved otherwise as they were perhaps the most abundant bird ever to live on the face of the earth.
In the early 1800s they were estimated to be in the billions and could be found in forests from the east side of the rockies to upper New York state. Moreover, when they migrated to their southern haunts in winter, millions of them were seen in immense flights — over a mile-wide and 300 miles long — so many birds they blotted out the sun. The sun!
Passenger pigeons nested in colonies of such magnitude it is almost unbelievable — over 100 nests in just one tree. Multiply that by millions of trees in hardwood forests throughout the Midwest and East and you come up with billions of birds.
Unfortunately, it was those 300-mile long flocks of passenger pigeons that led to their demise; meat hunters selling their remains to the hotels in New York believed they were inexhaustible.
Passenger pigeons were a little larger than present day rock doves and flew just about as fast – close to 60 miles an hour. Hunters who didn’t want to waste ammunition trying to hit such a fast flyer found it was a lot easier to kill them when they were nesting — as the plume-hunters discovered in the early 1900s when they slaughtered egrets, just for their feathers to put in lady’s hats.
Pigeons killed at the nesting sites left eggs and young to die; consequently the fate of the passenger pigeon was sealed. Only one egg was laid normally, incubated by the female and fed by both parents, but only until the youngster could stand and had feathers. About two weeks after hatching the adults just up and deserted the chick, leaving it to fend for itself.
With the advent of the telegraph, meat-hunters knew exactly where pigeons were at all times, and exactly when they arrived at the nesting trees and then set about slaughtering them. Only the breasts were taken, packed in ice and delivered by train to expensive restaurants in New York and other eastern cities.
By 1910, there was only one female passenger pigeon left on Earth, Martha (named after Martha Washington, wife of the first president of our country), living in the Cincinnati Zoo. At 1pm, on Sept. 1, 1914, Martha died at the age of 29 years.
Looking at the growing population of American bald eagles flying around Oregon today, I’m so thankful that we have learned a lesson from the passing of the dodo bird and passenger pigeon. But as I look at the destruction of our greater sage grouse habitat, converted into cow pastures and the new dictate from President Trump cutting up our national parks, I wonder, “Have we really learned our lesson?”
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.
