by johnnymarin | Oct 9, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
Allan Cassidy (66), a resident of Dubbieside, in Lower Methil, claims rats have been an issue in the area for two years, but that this was “the worst I’ve ever known it”. One of the dead rats. Allan, a pensioner who lives in a private let, lost two of his racing pigeons last week after they came down with Paratyphoid. He says the racing pigeons caught the bacterial disease which is caused by the rats. Paratyphoid is a pigeon disease caused by salmonella – and it is thought this can be spread by rats. Allan has used medicine to treat the rest of the racing pigeons, and deployed poison and traps to kill the rats. However, he says he does not know the root of the issue and does not wishing to keep paying out for medicine, traps and poison. Allan has called on Fife Council to investigate. “It’s not a new thing in this area, so there must be some food,” he explained. “The amount of rat poison that is disappearing – I’ve never seen it like that. I don’t know where the source is. “I’m a pensioner. It’s hard enough to keep my pigeons going, never mind buying the bait and poison. “The council need to investigate and get to the root of this. Vermin running about like this – that’s no good.” Allan describes the racing pigeons as “massively important” to him. Delight for residents after controversial… £10,000 funding for Fife to get ‘weather… He added: “A pigeon has to be 100 per cent to fly the channel. Anything less and it might not perform well or you might even lose it.” Fife Council said it had received no reports of rats in the area.
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 | Oct 8, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Enterprise and Daleville business owner Kiko Arana spoke about his love for racing pigeons at the Lions Club meeting on Sept 12.
He races pigeons in the homing pigeon family, which can instinctively find their way home from great distances. They are different from the normal pigeons you’ll see on the sidewalk.
Due to that instinctive ability, these pigeons have a history of being used to deliver messages for both military and civilian use, according to Arana.
According to a New York Times article, the “first message-bearing pigeon was loosed by Noah. The ancient Romans used pigeons for chariot races, to tell owners how their entries had placed. Genghis Khan established pigeon relay posts across Asia and much of Eastern Europe. Charlemagne made pigeon-raising the exclusive privilege of nobility. The Rothschild fortune is said to have been seriously augmented by a pigeon bearing news of the British victory at Waterloo.”
These pigeons were widely used throughout World War I and according a Wall Street Journal article, the French military was seeking to return its pigeons to active duty in case of an electromagnetic attack.
Arana’s biggest interest in the birds, however, is their ability to imprint the location of their home. Arana said that no one really knows for sure how homing pigeons find their way home, but he has a theory.
“I’m a believer that—more than anything else—the smell is what brings them home,” Arana said. “They’ve done a lot of experiments but when they block the sensors in the nose, they (the pigeons) cannot make it home.”
It’s also this sense that allows people to race homing pigeons.
The pigeons are released at set location and use this ability to navigate back to the club house. The pigeon that makes it back to the club house the fastest is the victor.
The races in the area are in 75, 150, 200, 300, 400 and 600 mile lengths with the longer races taking multiple days for the pigeons to return.
Pigeons average about 50 miles per hour during the races, according to Arana.
He entered his first race in 1977 in Puerto Rico and has been racing ever since.
Though his birds still race in other parts of the country, Arana said the club he used to race for here, the Wiregrass Racing Pigeon Club, is inactive. He said he hoped that teaching people about racing pigeons would help create newcomers to bring the club back to life.
He brought one of his pigeons to the meeting and showed it to all the members of the Lions Club.
“I wanted to release the pigeon but then I remembered it was hunting season,” Arana 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 | Oct 7, 2018 | Bird Netting
A pigeon-infested building in the heart of Hucknall could finally be repaired after the owners were prosecuted for failing to improve its appearance.
Residents said the dilapidated building at 1a Albert Street is a known spot for drug users, with up to 40 needles found during a sweep.
It is also caked in pigeon excrement, graffiti, and residents fear it is “a dangerous eyesore” which has become a playground for youngsters.
Ashfield District Council has been fighting with the owners – Trent Properties Limited – since November 2017 following a number of complaints.
The council said the building – which has been empty for some years – is in a poor condition and has become home to a flock of pigeons.
The local authority said it contacted the owners requesting scheduled work to be carried out within three months, but they failed to do so.
Despite warnings and a fixed penalty notice of £100, which they failed to pay, the council had no option but to take them to court.
In their absence, the council said the company were found guilty, fining them £2,000 with a victim surcharge of £170.
They were also ordered to pay the council’s prosecution costs of £484.40, and must carry out the work on the property within 28 days.
Baker Paul Harris, 60, who lives next door to the building, said: “It is an eyesore. Some new flats have been built across the road and that is all they are seeing – pigeons.
“It has been like that for five years, ever since I moved in. It is not very nice living next to it. When I come off working nights all you can hear is pigeons. It does affect your sleep.
“It needs boarding up. I think at one time it is used to be a butchers.”
Lorraine Pendlebury, 52, who has lived on Albert Street for seven years, said: “It is filthy – birds are living in there and rats go through the jitty. They need to knock it down because when they first cleared it they found about 40 needles and kids do go under there and it is dangerous.
“I think they should be fined more.”
Support nurses Kerry Saxelby, 43, and Rebecca Wilshaw, 42, who live in Hucknall and regularly pass by the building felt it was “unsafe” and an “eyesore.”
Mrs Saxelby said: “It is a total eyesore. It is on an access road so a lot of people do see it.”
Mrs Wilshaw added: “It looks unsafe. There are a lot of kids that play around here so if anything happens. I don’t think fining them will sort it out. I think it needs to be more.”
Talking about the prosecution, Councillor Jason Zadrozny, leader of Ashfield District Council, said: “The council have a number of dilapidated buildings on our caseload, and although some of these owners chose not to engage, we will find them to ensure that these buildings don’t remain a blight on our communities.
“This prosecution is a brilliant result for Hucknall residents and shows that we take disrepair seriously and are committed to cracking down on these rogue property owners. We want them to know that we are coming for them.”
Nottinghamshire Live tried to contact Trent Properties Ltd for a comment, but were unable to do so.
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 | Oct 6, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
We’re not talking about the future anymore. Driverless vehicles are here. In the latest example, in Catalonia, Spain, an autonomous bus called Èrica is being tested around the region to help citizens become familiar with what driverless technology entails.
These bus experiments are also designed to allow local-government officials to adapt to this new means of transportation, which they expect to be fully functioning by 2020.
Equipped with eight sensors, the red and yellow self-driving shuttle unveiled by the Association of Municipalities for Mobility and Urban Transport, AMTU, is 100 percent electrically powered with 14 hours of autonomous driving. It’s air-conditioned and suitable for reduced-mobility passengers.
Looking like a rectangular minivan, Èrica can transport up to 11 passengers and an attendant, who is there to help and advise travelers and deal with emergencies.
Some 4,600 citizens from Sant Cugat, Terrassa, and Sabadell, all cities close to Barcelona, already took the new bus in September. Now AMTU plans to bring it to Girona, El Vendrell, Reus, Martorell, and Vic in October.
However, preparing the bus for these new routes takes time. Before it can begin to carry passengers, Èrica, which stands for electric, revolutionary, intelligent, shared (compartit in Catalan) and amicable, needs two days of preparation, as it has to record the route to be driven in detail using GPS.
Once the bus has been prepared for its new route, passengers can board and have the choice of standing or using one of the six available seats.
On the road, laser sensors help the bus detect unexpected obstacles in its path, such as passers-by or even pigeons. It’s reassuring that the vehicle cannot run anything over, but the safety features also mean it is constantly stopping and starting.
As part of those safety features, the bus is also limited to a maximum speed of 18km/h, or 11mph. This restriction is also to protect standing passengers from sudden braking.
The speed limit is also because the urban environment is complex. With no bicycles, skateboards, scooters, passers-by, cats, dogs, or birds, the bus could in theory travel at speeds of up to 40km/h, or 25mph.
AMTU director Joan Prat tells ZDNet that the shuttle is able to ‘see’ what happens within 200 meters and is programmed to come to a rapid halt, if necessary, when it detects an object at less than 30 centimeters.
However, he also acknowledges that certain weather conditions remain a problem. “In case of heavy rain, the vehicle detects [the water as] an unidentified object, so it can’t operate.”
In the near future, cameras located on the roof will be able to identify exactly what the object encountered is, he adds.
Those issues are among the reasons why, for now, these self-driving shuttles are only be used for pre-checked routes and as first- or last-mile systems, to connect a train station to the city center or vice versa, or work in restricted traffic environments, for example.
“Shuttles like Èrica are designed to complement the current transport network and not to replace any line,” Prat says.
In France, the RATP group conducted similar experiments with EZ10 shuttles in Paris last year and is continuing its automation program in the region this year with a bigger bus driving itself to the depot. Stockholm and Dublin have also hosted pilot programs.
Pere Calvet, general manager of Catalonian railway company FGC, says automation technology is here to stay.
“We still need to overcome hurdles, such as legislation, and carefully deal with moral issues as well as the coexistence of people and machines in the urban environment,” he says.
“But the shift to a more sustainable mobility is necessary and unstoppable.”
Progress certainly has to be made, as polluting emissions in Spain shot up 4.5 percent in 2017, the biggest increase since the Kyoto protocol came into force.
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 | Oct 5, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
The rapidly increasing numbers of pigeons (nok pilab) has ruffled a few official feathers in Bangkok. There was bit of a flap after authorities warned that citizens caught feeding the birds would face a stiff fine, explaining the pigeons were spreading disease. These birds divide opinion, some calling them “rats with wings”, others more generously “doves without the PR”. Fond as I am of feathered friends, I must admit pigeons are not my favourite. About 10 years ago, I wrote about the problems of pigeons at our residence. It began harmlessly enough with a couple of the birds raiding the dogs’ food bowls at the back of the house. Initially it was not a major concern, but word soon spread amongst the pigeon community. They began arriving in squadrons and became a real nuisance. Getting rid of them was another matter. I quickly learned that clapping my hands and shouting “Shoo!” was only a temporary solution and also looked quite pathetic. Pigeons are smart and swiftly worked out that hand-claps are not gunshots. On occasions I felt like those people in the Hitchcock film, The Birds, although they were attacked by seagulls, a much more aggressive species than the pigeon. Please log in here to fully view this exclusive content. If you aren’t a member yet, simply sign up here. It’s totally free & takes only a minute.
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)
