by johnnymarin | Jul 25, 2018 | Pigeons in the News
A Chicago alderman wants the city to lift a nearly 15-year ban on pigeon racing.
Alderman Gilbert Villegas says pigeon racing is a sport that receives little attention in the U.S. but is “deeply loved” in Poland. Villegas’ ward is home to many Polish residents he says are working with his office to change the city’s law.
The sport features specially trained pigeons that are released from specific locations and race back to their homes.
Villegas’ proposal would lift the ban for people in good standing with a national professional organization that requires minimum standards of care for “pedigreed rock doves.” Each bird would have to be registered with the organization.
The city banned homing pigeons in residential areas in 2004 after complaints from residents.
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 | Jul 24, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
The idea of raising barn pigeons as racing pigeons made sense, at least to me. So growing up, I built a coop (with help) behind our garage, then raised and trained barn pigeons as though they were racing pigeons.
I only trained them over a few miles, not the hundreds of miles that racing pigeons (homing pigeons) can do. But my training and buried knowledge in the barn pigeons worked: They came home to my chicken-wire coop.
Memories rushed back this week when I read Fran Spielman’s Sun-Times story on Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) introducing an ordinance at the City Council meeting Wednesday to lift the Chicago ban on pigeon racing. Two other Northwest Side aldermen, Ariel Reboyras (30th) and Nick Sposato (38th), co-sponsored the ordinance.
I would love to see the return of racing pigeons — legally — in Chicago. They’re remarkable creatures.
Barn pigeons, the country cousins of city pigeons, are not as remarkable. The difference between barn or city pigeons and racing pigeons is like the difference between me and Julius Peppers.
Barn and city pigeons are descended from domestic pigeons. Domestic pigeons, such as racing pigeons, descend from rock doves.
The homing instinct is mysterious and remarkable in racing pigeons.
As a kid, my dad would drive me into the city (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) and its edifice of a massive library. I read every book on pigeons they had, but I devoured the books on racing pigeons.
I read of the exploits (some were war heroes) and looked at the photos of them — erect and firm specimens, unlike the creatures pecking grain and corn kernels out of manure on farms or the city pigeons picking up bread crumbs.
Racing pigeons required a very special mix of feed. I even found the place that supplied racing food.
On the sports pages of the daily Intelligencer Journal, the agate section (as somebody who did two staff stints as a lowly agate clerk for the Sun-Times’ sports section, I love that part) would include a small piece of fine print from the Red Rose Pigeon Club, now gone as members aged and younger people did not join.
I quickly reached what I could do in terms of training barn pigeons. I learned how to handle them and to get them to fly to me to eat grain from between my lips.
So I dug out a number for the Red Rose Pigeon Club, then found the nerve to call. The guy I reached knew a club member willing to give me an old mated pair. That was a big deal. In those days, a top racing pigeon was worth more than my dad made in a year working in a stone quarry.
There was a good reason for an old pair. While they didn’t mean much to the owner, they meant the world to me. Second, the pair would be imprinted with the old coop, but their young would be imprinted with my chicken-wire coop.
I would love to tell you I grew into a proud junior member of the club. No. While I became good at training and raising racing pigeons, soccer and girls (or the idea of girls) took over my life.
Here’s hoping some young man or woman has the chance to train racing pigeons in Chicago.
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 | Jul 23, 2018 | Bird Deterrent Products
Here lies Pippa the Pigeon, beloved mother to 28 chicks, scavenger of crisps, befouler of statues, buried here at the age of 63 (in bird years).
If this sounds unfamiliar, it is because there are no pigeon cemeteries in British cities, nor are there any pigeon crematoria, which rather begs the question: where do pigeons go when they die? According to one estimate, there are up to one million pigeons in London alone. With a life expectancy in the city of as little as four years, this suggests that several million dead pigeons should have piled up around us, but where are they all?
An expert in animal physiology has felt moved to provide an answer to the mystery. Steve Portugal, an ecophysiologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “Foxes, rats, gulls, crows and ravens all do a wonderful job of cleaning up any carrion they come across, including deceased pigeons.
“Alongside these native janitors, domestic cats are equally happy to take care of a dead or injured pigeon . . . this network of surreptitious street cleaners will usually whisk away any pigeon corpses long before they’re seen by human eyes.” Dr Portugal added that when pigeons are ill or injured, they often hide. He wrote on The Conversation, a news website: “[They] instinctively retreat to dark, remote places — ventilation systems, attics, building ledges — hoping to remain out of reach and unnoticed by predators. The predators don’t see them but neither do we: often when pigeons expire they are in hiding.”
He added: “Dying of old age is not a luxury afforded to most pigeons. As soon as they shows signs of slowness or sickness, many are snapped up by peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, or other predators.
“Whether snatched midair by birds of prey, entangled by man-made obstacles or alone in a remote corner of a skyscraper’s roof garden, there are many ways that pigeons pass on from this world. But they all take place within an internal urban ecosystem, that, for the most part, is hidden from our sight.”
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 | Jul 22, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
WASHINGTON — Court records obtained by WUSA9 show the accused shooter who killed five journalists from the Capital Gazette newspaper on Thursday spent years filing lawsuits, petitions and motions against a long list of people who came in his line of sight.
Anne Arundel county prosecutors have charged Jarrod W. Ramos with five counts of murder in the first degree.
WUSA9 sifted through more than 300 records, diving into Ramos’s history inside and outside of the courtroom.
The documents obtained by WUSA9 begin in 2011, when a woman Ramos attended high school with asked law enforcement to file charges against him for harassment. The victim told prosecutors Ramos began contacting her via the internet in 2009.
In a handwritten statement seeking a peace order, the victim told the court “initially the nature of these emails was friendly,” but said later they became “increasingly alarming, vulgar, and incoherent.” She alleged Ramos told her to harm herself and called her place of employment with a disparaging remark.
The court granted her request for a peace order in 2011, the first of at least two the victim filed and granted against Ramos.
He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of harassment on July 26th, 2011. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation, which included a responsibility to attend counseling and have no contact with the victim,-a condition he’d later seek to “clarify.”
On July 31, 2011, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, Eric Thomas Hartley, described his case in a column about internet harassment.
The story enraged Ramos.
Court records show months after the story ran, Ramos requested reconsideration of his sentence. In November 2011, a judge struck the guilty finding from the record and allowed for probation before judgment, a conditional probation before sentencing.
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 | Jul 21, 2018 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
It was spring, and the young Red Oak tree was proud to say it was growing tall. Its lovely red leaves were unfolding and spreading out, and it longed to grow as tall as the bigger Red Oaks, that elite group of its “seniors” whose branches made a beautiful red canopy above.
They whispered and giggled and told secrets to each other, their leaves rustling in the wind. The young Red Oak usually missed out on these conversations, because it had been too small and too much of a sleepy head. Now that it was awake and growing each day, it was almost the size of the older Oaks, and it was looking forward to being a part of the “club”. “Welcome, Kid”, said a good natured Red Oak tree that stood a little away from where it was. “We’ve been watching you grow. You’re lucky you made it this far!”
“Lucky?” said the young Red Oak, a little puzzled. “Why do you say that?” The older Oak tree shrugged. “Ah, you wouldn’t know. Do you see those Great White Oak trees, growing tall above us?” The young Red Oak squinted upwards. It saw for the first time that there were several bigger trees that towered tall over the beautiful Red Oaks, atleast a hundred feet in height. They were more in number as well. “Oh!” gasped the young one, “These are numerous! And huge! But what does that have to do with us?”
“Well, you’ll see quite soon”, said the older Red Oak. “Now that you’re tall enough, and aware of your surroundings, you’ll see what keeps us Red Oaks from prospering in this land”, it said mysteriously. No sooner had it finished speaking when there was a curious rumbling sound that reverberated through the North American forest. The sky seemed to darken as if thunder clouds were looming over the horizon. The rumble soon grew into a cacophony that became louder and louder, and soon the young tree could make out the source of this noise: an enormous flock of pigeons, so many in number that they covered the sky like a dark blanket blocking out the sun, was making its way towards them.
The flapping of the wings of thousands of the pigeons seemed to sound like the flapping of the giant wings of a single unearthly monster. The hungry pigeons attacked the Red Oak trees with a force that surprised the young tree. It was still small, and didn’t have acorns yet— the fruits that Red Oaks usually bore, but that didn’t stop the birds from settling on its tender branches, weighing them down heavily. The rest shuffled through its leaves and branches, and not finding any food, contented themselves with trying to gorge on the acorns of the bigger Red Oaks.
The young tree glanced at the older Oak that was trying to fight them off, trying to toss its branches about a bit. But the stubborn pigeons stayed on, feasting on its acorns and nestling in great numbers on its branches, all the while cooing and pecking and tittering away. Elsewhere, they heard a loud crack, the sound of a branch breaking due to the weight of the birds. A while later, when they had had their fill— or rather, when they’d eaten up everything they could find, the pigeons flew away, again a hurricane in the distant horizon. “Passenger pigeons!” the older Red Oak said in disgust.
“Do you see what they do now? They lay the Red Oak trees bare with their appetite. They are too many, and too greedy! Our acorns carrying our seeds for the next generation of Red Oak trees, all eaten up by those gluttons!” Some of the other Red Oak trees murmured their agreement. The young Red Oak looked up at the White Oak trees. They were untouched. “Why don’t they forage in the White Oaks for food?” it asked. “The White Oaks have acorns that germinate during autumn, and the pigeons breed then”, said the older one. “They are safe for now. But this is what goes wrong for us Red Oaks. And just look at the amount of droppings on the forest floor! If a fire breaks out, we’re done for!”
“Why, what about the White oaks?” said the young Red Oak. “Won’t they get hurt too, in a forest fire?” “They’re resistant to fire”, said the older Red oak. “Aren’t these the birds that I heard, are used by humans to carry messages?” said the little Red Oak, trying to recollect what he had overheard somewhere from someone. “Oh, you’re getting confused!” said the older Oak, “those are carrier pigeons, or messenger pigeons. Those ones can find their way back home alright. Much more sensible. And intelligent. Not crazy like these ones. Now you’ll see the native Red Indians coming to kill some of these silly birds sometime soon.
Sometimes I wonder if they are as crazy as the birds. They hunt the birds for the meat, then offer the meat to their deity, and then there’s this elaborate ritual, it’s quite funny actually—” But before they could say anything more, the sound of a gunshot rang through the forest. “What was that?” asked the little Red Oak, but it couldn’t ask anymore as several gunshots were fired into the stillness of the forest, and the wild pandemonium caused by fluttering wings and bird squeals reached them. “Looks like it’s the White people who’ve moved in around here newly— they have something that’s used to fire at the birds. All you have to do is, point it upwards and press something, the birds are so many that atleast one will be hit and killed”, muttered the older Oak tree. “I hope they finish them all”, it added, under its breath.
In the following days and months, the little Red Oak tree grew taller and stronger, and as it did, it started noticing that the Passenger pigeons were no longer coming in flocks. Their number had come down drastically, while the number of hunters had gone up. The older Oak tree and the other Oaks that stood some way away in the distance were overjoyed by this development. Several new Red Oaks were taking root in the forest, thanks to the acorns being left alone by the dwindling number of Passenger pigeons.
Only the little Red Oak tree missed them bit. It had not seen enough of them, and it seemed like it had taken root at the dawn of a new era with the disappearance of the Passenger pigeons. It grew to be one of the biggest Red Oaks in the region, with numerous other Red Oaks all around, having managed to outnumber the White Oaks after all!
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)
