by johnnymarin | Nov 23, 2017 | Pigeons in the News
Smokey, the King Ro cat – or, as he thinks, “the King of Round Pond” — had quite an unexpected, unwanted experience this weekend. Smokey was scooped up a mere 10 or so yards from the store — his home — and taken to the animal shelter. From what we can piece together, someone from away thought that a cat out and about is not the norm and called animal control. While their hearts may have been in the right place, please realize that in a small town in Maine, cats do go out and hunt — they are not all indoor cats.
At the age of 22, the experience was very upsetting for him. Once I got him back to King Ro, as you can see by the accompanying photo, he immediately felt a cat nap was in order in one of his favorite spots at the store. Many, many thanks to the kind people at the animal shelter. They certainly go above and beyond.
It has been a very difficult time for so many people in the area. One of the kindest, best people you could hope to encounter was killed in a motorcycle accident last Thursday. Kevin Willey has always been one of the very favorite customers to come into King Ro and will be missed beyond words. Kevin would walk through the door, always with a huge smile, and brighten everyone’s day. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Kevin’s beloved, Storm Hildebrandt. There will be a service on Saturday, Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. at Broad Bay Congo Church in Waldoboro, next to Hall’s Funeral Home. A reception will immediately follow at the American Legion in Damariscotta.
I finally had to take action against my invasion of pigeons. I stopped filling my feeders for almost two weeks, hoping that they would move on to greener pastures. After a few days, they did disappear, but unfortunately all of my other feathered friends flew on to other feeders as well. A couple of days ago I refilled all feeders and the finches are slowly coming back, but thankfully no sign of pigeons as of yet. I apologize ahead of time to whoever’s feeders they are invading now!
This Friday, Oct. 13, will be the first Friday Night Dinner at King Ro for the season. We will be serving a full turkey dinner from 5:30-8: p.m. Steph will be making pumpkin cheesecake and apple pie, along with yeast rolls. We look so forward to seeing all of the hungry folks again.
I am going to give Buddy Poland Jr. credit for this week’s quote: “Do a job that you like and you’ll never work again.”
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 22, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
If feral peafowl caused enough of a nuisance in 1990s Tampa Bay, Florida, you’d call Bryan Cleveland.
“You’d have 150 peacocks in a very upper-class neighborhood,” he said. “And every morning when they’d wake up, they’d see a peacock on the roof of their $110,000 Mercedes — you know what I’m saying — and just ripping it to pieces.”
Cleveland was one of just a few nuisance wildlife removal outfits in that area then. He said the work pitted him against all kinds of animals.
He got calls about hogs all the time. Roaming packs of them tore up landscaping. He evicted seagulls and pelicans from docks with expensive boats moored nearby. Raccoons grew wise and avoided his traps.
Naturally, the job also included pigeon control. He trapped lots of them — one contract came from Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team. Pigeon abatements were good gigs.
“Generally a pigeon job will last months on end,” he said.
Miles away and years later, officials in Glendive felt they were facing a pigeon problem. They swarmed the old grain elevator and congregated near the BNSF building.
Town leaders felt the best remedy was to attack the population. A 2015 poison campaign received “mixed reviews,” as district sanitarian Kevin Peña charitably put it. They ended up with lots of visible pigeon carcasses and still many more flying around.
Peña was open to suggestions. So when a friend told him about a guy who recently moved to Glendive and had made a living catching nuisance animals, Peña listened.
Eventually, they struck a deal.
“So he approached me and said, ‘What about a bounty of $2 per bird?’” Peña said.
Pest control
The pigeons’ marks on Glendive sidewalks began wearing on the public’s collective last nerve.
“The birds are an annoyance, but it’s the droppings we get complaints about,” said Peña, who has been sanitarian for Dawson and Wibaux counties for four years.
They took particular refuge at the old Jordan Inn, an abandoned hotel that had been shuttered by court order and left unkempt by an out-of-state owner. Peña’s office received a public nuisance petition for the building and its pigeon population.
One business owner, Steve Bury, said that rows of pigeons had lined the Inn’s precipices. Amanda Heimbuch, who runs a craft pottery and art shop a couple doors down, said that it’s the worst in the winter. Sidewalk droppings get covered by snow, and the pigeons distribute another layer on top.
The vacant Jordan Inn takes up half the block where her shop sits. The dirty sidewalk affects foot traffic into her business.
“A lot of people don’t want to walk on this side,” Heimbuch said.
The 2015 attempt to poison pigeons wasn’t intended to simply kill them all. Peña mixed the pigeon feed with Avitrol, which takes over a bird’s nervous system and makes them act erratically. It’s supposed to scare off the other birds.
But the poison can still be lethal. Residents complained about dead birds, and the living population wasn’t affected. Peña, who also sat on the Glendive City Council, got 150 emails from people concerned about the pigeons’ welfare.
“It was ugly,” Peña said. “I apologized to everyone involved.”
It was about that time when Cleveland moved his family to Montana. He knew the state from back in his early 20s, when he worked as a guide near Darby.
But the money then wasn’t great, he said, so in the early 1990s he went to Florida to start his nuisance wildlife business.
“My grandpa was a commercial fisherman and a trapper,” he said. “But he was a different type of trapper than I was. He was an alligator trapper and basically trapped animals to profit from the animals themselves—like alligator hides, otter skins—things of that nature.”
Cleveland is a jack-of-all-trades type, working now as a mail carrier during the day but taking other odd jobs here and there. When he got to Glendive, he learned that his experience trapping birds in Florida uniquely suited the town’s needs.
The original plan was to sell captured Glendive pigeons to buyers in the south who want them for food. Squab, as pigeon meat is known, is sold by both small and commercial operations in some areas of the country.
The sales plan didn’t work out. The shipping costs for live pigeons was too much to make a profit.
So he worked out another deal with the city and county to set up a wire trap atop the Jordan Inn. Each jurisdiction donated $1,000 to the effort, and Cleveland makes $2 per bird until the money runs out.
A business owner separately contracted with Cleveland for a trap on another building. He checks them each night when the birds are calmer.
Between the two traps, Cleveland says he’s caught 408 pigeons.
“They’re a greedy species,” Cleveland said. “And when they see one of their buddies in the cage, eating, they lose all fear and they try to figure out ‘How do I get in there and get that food?’”
Nesting
Not all pigeons live and die as pests.
Relied upon in modern history for wartime communication, homing pigeons can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars on the racing circuit today. They’re raced short distances or up and down the coast.
Racing pigeons usually have identifying bands on their legs. Cleveland said he’d identify New York birds while trapping in Florida.
“They look completely different, so you can tell immediately,” he said. “Even if they don’t have a band on them you can tell a racing pigeon from a barn pigeon — what they call barn pigeons here in Montana.”
Racing pigeons often have a lighter body color, he said. They’re “salt-and-pepper looking.”
One of them lives in Cleveland’s back yard. Racer, as it’s named, was a gift from an area pigeon enthusiast.
Racer shares a coop with Leprechaun and Pumpkin, two brightly colored common pigeons caught in Glendive. The birds sit calmly in the Cleveland kids’ grasps, held closely against their chests.
Of all the animals Cleveland has trapped, three pigeons ended up as backyard pets (his family has dogs and cats, too).
There are uses for the other pigeons he catches in Glendive.
“A lot of these dog trainers want them,” Cleveland said. “Problem with that is I’ve got to house them — you know, a lot of birds at a time.”
Next to the pet pigeon coop in Cleveland’s backyard was a dog kennel with 20 or so trapped pigeons. He said the trainers take 30 or 40 birds at a time. The others go to trappers. What they do with the pigeons is their business, he said, but he’s been able to give away all the Glendive birds so far.
For now, it appears that Cleveland is making a dent in the Glendive pigeon population. Heimbuch, the business owner, wondered how long trapping would continue. Won’t more pigeons just show up next year?
The pigeon problem in downtown Glendive seems tied to the fate of the Jordan Inn building, which has become a sort of multi-level pigeon nest. The building’s owner hasn’t moved to pay for restoration or demolition, and Peña said he doesn’t want to see tax money used on that if he can help it.
So for now, Cleveland finds himself back in the trapping business.
“If you’ve got a building that’s already dilapidated a little bit, and you throw pigeons into the mix, now you’ve just damn near condemned the building,” he 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 21, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Western Canada’s top birds will be on display in the North Okanagan next weekend.
The Vernon Pigeon and Poultry Club will host the American Poultry Association Canadian National Show Saturday, Oct. 14, at Armstrong’s Hassen Arena. The event will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and there is no admission charge.
“Exhibitors are coming from Manitoba and each province west,” said Vernon Pigeon and Poultry Club president Dudley DeLeenheer. “We’re expecting up to 1,000 birds. This could be the largest show of its kind in Canada in 2017.”
The club last hosted the show in 2010. The show gets rotated between the West, Central and East.
Large chickens, bantam chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl and pigeons will be on display, showing their stuff for two judges from California who will judge poultry and waterfowl. One judge from Washington will preside over the pigeons.
The judges will look for shape, colour, cleanliness, good quality feathers and state of health among the bird entries.
“This will be a highly competitive show so the birds will be exceptional,” said DeLeenheer. “All birds will be purebred. Some heritage breeds will be on exhibit. Be prepared to see lots of colour, bare legs and feathered legs, single combs, rose combs and variety of other shaped combs, all kinds of shapes and sizes of birds.”
The event co-chairpersons are Heather Hayes of Armstrong (poultry judge and breeder of quality stock) and Joe Mazur of Enderby (breeder of top-notch Cochin bantams).
“We also have an enthusiastic group of bird fanciers from our club that are determined to put on a first-class show,” said DeLeenheer.
Sponsors for the show include Peavey Mart and the Township of Spallumcheen.
A concession will be provided by the Armstrong Scouts.
Exhibitors will enjoy a banquet at the Royal York Golf Course clubhouse.
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 20, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Anna Kendrick used her instafamous powers, above, for good when she demonstrated the correct way to interact with birds: Don’t.
Don’t touch them, don’t talk to them and definitely don’t look at them in their beady eyes. Making direct eye contact is a sign of aggression and you don’t want to get aggressive with a bird because they WILL fight you. But also don’t let a bird know you’re afraid of it. Show fear and a bird will peck your eye out or swallow you whole like you’re just a little mouse! Even pigeons! ESPECIALLY pigeons.
Which is why I really wish Meg Ryan would look where she’s going. There’s a disgusting, horrible pigeon right in front of her! And she’s walking like she doesn’t have a care in the world! It’s like she hears nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of her own heart. But maybe it’s a carrier pigeon. Maybe it has mail. Maybe this is the meet-cute we’ve all been waiting for! Maybe I should just forget about birds and go watch You’ve Got Mail for the billionth time.
Andrea Martin got to meet a llama and I’m only a little jealous. Mostly ’cause I think alpacas are better. (They’re not the spitters.)
Matt Lanter and Chrissy Metz ALSO get to meet a llama. OK, now I’m a lot jealous. I bet the cool animal hangs are just about the best things about being famous. Imagine somebody bringing you sloths or capybaras or llamas virtually whenever you want. Celebrities. They’re not just like us.
Larry David confronts his doppelganger, former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. Imagine being Larry David and discovering late in life how much you look like all the other old white guys. Pretty pretty good work if you can get it.
Whether you’re the original Gollum like Andy Serkis, more of a hobbit-lover type like Armie Hammer, or a full-on Smeagol like Jake Gyllenhaal, I think we can all agree that nobody should touch your precioussss.
The colour of these clothes worn by the members of HAIM can only be described as Pepto Bismol pink. Fittingly, a glug or two of Pepto Bismol is exactly what you would need if you consumed too much HAIM.
Haley Joel Osment watches Macaulay Culkin and Breckin Meyer, patiently awaiting his turn with Meyer’s new business venture “Human Uber, but for former child stars who are no longer cute.”
Prince William was in Belfast, where it was raining and where he showed blatant favouritism to bald men when he shared his umbrella only with a fellow bald man. I’m sorry. That was rude. In England, it’s called a brolly.
While he was in Ireland, Prince William also indulged in the time-honoured royal tradition of pouring one shot of whiskey for himself, then one for his boat.
Thanks, Al Roker and Anthony Kiedis, for showing everybody what proper and improper bike safety looks like. Remember kids: Always wear a helmet. And a shirt.
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 19, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
Householders in Weston used on average more electricity in a year than anywhere else in the South West, and possibly even the rest of the country.
The average home used 4,074 units a year, and the town was the first in the South West to reach an average of more than 4,000.
The figures were attributed to the number of new homes being built with electricity installed.
Pigeons were once again blighting the town, but oral contraceptive pills were being considered as the best way to decrease their numbers.
An experiment with the pills being put in pigeon food was being conducted in Birmingham.
It was not the first time Weston councillors considered using contraceptives on the pigeons, but in the past they had always chosen to trap them instead.
Somerset County Council rejected a plea to keep Kingston Seymour’s school open.
The motion was defeated 51 votes to 26.
Criticism was made of the inadequacy of the South West Regional Economic Planning Council when dealing with tourism.
Weston and much of Somerset had been left out of the plan for the South West, and grumbles about it continued.
It was claimed North Somerset and the Mendips attracted four million day visitors and half a million overnight visitors every year.
The Commodore in Kewstoke was flooded after the tide breached a boundary wall. It was one of the highest tides of the year.
Blustering winds also made the Weston Grand Prix cycling race a gruelling task.
The riders were confronted with almost gale force winds during parts of it.
September was the warmest in Weston for nine years, but there was more rainfall than there had been since 1958.
A referendum on whether street lights should be introduced in Congresbury had been held a year ago.
Some lights had been set up so councillors could decide which was better between sodium and mercury vapour bulbs.
‘A battle was on’ to save the chestnut trees in Alexandra Parade.
The highways committee wanted to remove them on public safety grounds, and replace them with silver birch but a number of people were not in favour of it.
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)
