by Ryan Ponto | Jun 1, 2017 | Bird Netting
Wimbledon’s resident hawk Rufus decided tennis was not the life for him and disappeared to the golf course this year, his handler has revealed.
The hawk is used by the All England Club to scare pigeons away so they do not cause a nuisance to players on court.
His handler Imogen Davis said: “He likes to keep me on my toes every year…and generally when somebody is expecting something of me.
“He disappeared to the golf club, and made me go into the pond after him. I was soaked up to here (my knees) and I was like: ‘You didn’t’.”
Rufus starts work at 5am, and not just during the two weeks of the Championships, his year-round job includes making sure pigeons do not nest in the roof of Centre Court.
Ms Davis, from Corby, Northamptonshire, said the Harris Hawk is trained not to attack.
She said: “It’s based on the innate sense of fight or flight, so if a pigeon wants to fight him they can hang around and give it a go but ultimately he is the predator versus prey.”
Ms Davis has to keep a close eye on the bird after he was stolen in 2012 before being returned to the RSPCA.
The 30-year-old handler said: “We were running around frantically. We never did (find out who did it). At the time all I could think about was the well being of Rufus.
“Generally on a day he has one quail or three chicks and the RSPCA had given him 13 chicks. When I went to pick him up his crop was massive.”
Rufus, who has a special Wimbledon pass with the job title ‘bird scarer’ on it, has patrolled the grounds at SW19 for a decade.
The hawk has no special plans to celebrate the anniversary, but will be keeping the grounds pigeon free as usual.
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 | May 31, 2017 | Bird Netting
ALL I WANTED was a quiet place at the end of the road where I could write my memoirs.
About the years of struggling it took to become an overnight excess with a publishing empire stretching from Oil City to Whiskey Flats dedicated to shining the light of freedom on truth, justice and the American way.
If I could just find the time.
Something is always interrupting.
It’s all part of the nightmare we call country living.
It started with the drumming.
It was sort of a Bo Diddley- on-a-bender beat that just kept going and going and wouldn’t stop.
Naturally, I assumed it was just another Sasquatch drum circle heating up.
Sometimes I think that’s all they do.
Maybe I should apologize, but somebody has to work.
Financing the hunt for Bigfoot and baiting them in takes major funding.
Peanut butter and jam sandwiches don’t grow on trees, you know.
I opened the door and stuck my head out, ready to holler into the woods to get them to pipe down for a while, and saw the real reason for my disturbance: a cute little woodpecker.
With a bright red head and a great big beak, the woodpecker was pounding a hole in the side of the house.
Woodpeckers are some of the dumbest creatures on the planet.
Maybe it’s because they spend their lives beating their head against trees.
It only makes sense that an ecological niche that involves brain damage could lead to an evolutionary dead end.
Shooting the woodpecker was not an option.
That would contravene the Geneva Convention of Birdwatching and possibly upset the neighbors.
There are simple rules to get along in the country, such as drive slowly, mind your own business and don’t spray the neighbors with birdshot.
They could shoot back.
And besides, you have a lot better chance of borrowing stuff from the neighbors if you don’t shoot at them first. Enough said.
Not to mention woodpeckers are a protected species.
The birds seem to sense this.
When I tried to scare it away, the woodpecker looked at me like I was impacting his habitat.
I thought we could all just get along.
And we did until the starlings moved into the woodpecker hole.
This is a curse I would not wish on my best enemy.
First, there is the endless process of the starlings building the nest, which means they have to pull the pink fiberglass insulation out of the wall, scatter it over the yard and replace it with a flammable nest made of moss and dry twigs.
Eventually, the babies hatch.
You will know this from their constant shrieking for food from dawn till dark for weeks on end with a distinct aroma wafting through the wall.
It’s a congealing mass of rotting starling nest just waiting to be used again next year.
I sprang into action.
It was going to be too easy.
I grabbed a fish net and beat on the wall.
When the starling flew out of the woodpecker hole, I caught it, then drove it to town to turn it loose.
I could not imagine a crueler fate.
That was until I returned home to find the starling had beaten me back to the house.
The net trick wouldn’t work anymore.
I had to borrow a ladder from the neighbor and nail a board over the woodpecker hole.
For a moment, there was peace.
I’d just sat down to type a really good column for once and heard a woodpecker beating another hole in the wall.
Here we go 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 Ryan Ponto | May 30, 2017 | Bird Netting
Q. On my two-year-old maple tree, at about hip level on the trunk, all the bark is gone all the way down the tree. – S.S., Springfield
If the bark is peeled all the way around, it does not sound too hopeful that the tree will survive. A tree would have a hard time surviving if such damage went even half way around.
This is a process known as girdling, the killing off the tender wood just below the bark. This area of the bark is where all the moisture and nutrients travel up and down the tree to keep the plant alive.
I can think immediately of four possible causes for what you describe.
First, some maple trees do shed plates of bark, and sometimes these can be in rings around the tree. However, the tree is already putting on a new tough layer underneath that will now be the new bark.
The second possibility would be insect damage. You will usually see some holes bored into the tender wood where the bark has been peeled away.
If insects are the culprit, I assume you would find bore holes in the wood and possibly some slime or sawdust lying about on the trunk or on the ground. If you are convinced it is an insect problem then I would have the tree removed and burned or hauled away.
Possibility number three would be squirrel damage. Squirrels may scratch away at bark on a tree to try to get to some insect that may be living underneath the bark.
Finally, it could be a result of woodpecker damage — a woodpecker searching for insects pecks lots of holes into the tree and eventually does enough damage to the bark and the tender layer of new wood underneath, that the two separate and the bark will peel away.
Q: I’ve had a problem in the past with flowers and plants not blooming.– G.H, Springfield
The problem is usually related to the age of the plant, temperature, light, nutrition or pruning practices.
Many plants must reach a certain age before they are mature enough to produce flowers. Fruit trees, such as apples and pears, may require as long as five or six years before they produce fruit. Gingko trees can take up to 15 years before flowering.
A stressful environment may delay flowering even further.
Plants that have been budded or grafted may have delayed flowering or early flowering, depending on the type of rootstock onto which the plant was grafted.
Plants must be positioned to receive the proper amount of sunlight. Some plants flower best in full sun, others prefer cooler conditions in the shade.
Cold weather may kill buds on partially opened flowers. Hot, dry weather may cause buds to dry up. Various apple cultivars and peaches require exposure to periods of low temperatures.
Nutrition imbalances such as too much nitrogen can cause plants to produce primarily leaves and stems with few flowers.
Pruning plants at the wrong time of the year can be a reason plants fail to bloom. Spring-flowering plants begin setting next year’s flower buds in the late spring.
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 | May 29, 2017 | Bird Netting
It is difficult to imagine that a bird and a football player have much in common, but they do, and the lowly woodpecker just may hold the key to making safer football helmets.
The history of football is rife with attempts to make a better helmet for players to prevent skull fractures. While the technology does exist to prevent or diminish skull fractures, there is little to no protection from brain injuries. “This is where the woodpeckers come into play,” said traumatic brain injury attorney, Brooks Schuelke of Perlmutter & Schuelke, PLLC in Austin, Texas.
Dr. Gregory Myer, is the director of research and the human performance lab at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Sports Medicine division. Myer was contacted by Xennovate Medical’s CEO, David Smith, who was enthused about the possibilities of a possible breakthrough in brain injury care. The idea proposed came about as a result of studying woodpeckers.
Smith explained to Myer that woodpeckers prevent concussions by wrapping their tongues around their jugular veins to increase blood flow to the brain. This keeps the brain from moving about inside the skull while the bird hammers on wood. Myer understood that since the bird could not protect its head from the outside, the adaptation of winding its tongue around its jugular would prevent brain injuries. Mayer began research on the “Q Collar,” also known as the Neuroshield, which is designed to be worn around the neck and increase blood flow to human brains.
The initial prototype Neuroshield performed well in field tests with high school football teams, soccer teams and a SWAT team. The promising results may give the Neuroshield a chance that it could be pressed into service for the U.S. military. Although there is still more research to conduct, if the theory behind preventing brain trauma is correct, the collar may become an integral part of daily life and even be used while riding a bike or motorcycle. It is anticipated that the collar manufacturer, the Performance Sports Group, may put the product on the market by 2018.
“Traumatic brain injuries are complex and often alter a person’s life completely,” added Schuelke. “If you have been involved in an accident or suspect playing contact sports has resulted in a brain injury, my office is able to explain your legal options to you.”
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 | May 28, 2017 | Bird Netting
I’ve become the proprietor of an avian cheeseburger shack. We are so popular with the birds that I now trudge out every morning in my pajamas to make sure there is birdseed for breakfast. Heavy on the sunflower seeds, light on the thistle. We feed blue ones, red ones, black ones, brown ones, some spotted ones with red heads, and some bright yellow ones that are very little. I guess it’s obvious that I’m not too knowledgeable about birds. I am a city girl with a city girl’s appreciation of pigeons in the winter and gulls in the summer.
My Aunt Margie was a fanatic birder. She would go out birding with her binoculars and baggy shorts and wait for some precious specie to waft by. She kept a life list of every bird she had seen. She could trill bird calls if you asked and didn’t snicker. Her house was filled with Audubon prints, clocks that sounded bird calls on the hour and in her yard, a custom-made bird dream house with specs written for some kind of bird. I forget which kind of bird. Privately, we thought she was nuts.
Our own bird obsession started with the woodpecker last summer. Late summer, we started to hear a sharp tap-tap-tapping near the back of our house. Originally, I thought it was a plumbing racket. Or maybe a branch banging remarkably consistently in the wind. But every time I went out to investigate, the noise magically stopped. Just a bird flying away. It took a week for us to connect the dots between the ever-widening hole in the shingle and the bird in the nearby tree.
I went in to my husband. “I think we have Woody Woodpecker.” He reminded me that Woody was a cartoon and made the famous sound of the cartoon from our childhood. Hard to render into syllables, but “Eh-eh-eh-Uh-Oh!” I dragged him outside to see the evidence. We found a moldy copy of Birds of the Northeast clearly identifying the culprit. The next day, a handyman put a metal patch over the hole. Problem solved. The next week the woodpecker migrated (was there only one?) to the other side of the house. Another metal plate. I was starting to worry that our house would morph, from a clapboard farmhouse into an aluminum box, in one-foot-square increments.
My exhaustive research consisted of googling the catchy query, “What to do about woodpeckers?” and it yielded a few solutions. One: move. There are more birds than you. Two: get a birdfeeder and fill it with suet. What the heck. If you can’t beat ’em, feed ’em. It worked! Our woodpeckers invited their suet loving friends over for lunch and stopped snacking on our house. We started to like the birds. So many varieties! All day long, singing and chirping. We bought a new bird book and binoculars.
This year, when the frost was still on the morning grass, we got a second bird feeder. One you fill with seed not suet. I bought a big bag of birdseed at the grocery store and poured it in. The birds flocked, excited to locate our free buffet. The first bag lasted a month while the birds were flying back from Florida. Now, we think Yelp for Birds must have given us a very favorable review. At the hardware store, I was flabbergasted by the whole aisle of bird seed, like the cereal aisle at the Stop & Shop. Too many choices.
The guy with the white beard and nice smile asked me an existential question: “What kind of birds do you want?” I had no idea. “The pretty ones,” I answered. He looked at me indulgently, the way he might if I asked for a wrench with a pink handle but couldn’t tell him whether it was an Allen or a whatever. He tapped on a huge bag. “The ‘pretty ones’ like this. They like sunflower seeds. And mix it with this bag of thistle seed too.” For good measure, I bought a red glass hummingbird feeder and hummingbird food too. In for a cardinal, in for a humming bird. Humming birds are attracted by red, my new sage informed me.
He was so right. We became bird heaven by the end of the first day. A fly-in food truck for the Cohasset flock. The J-J’s of the feathered set. Full of seed in the morning, crumbs by evening. I was feeling good. Virtuous even. Then I had lunch with my lovely cousin Marianne, daughter of my Aunt Margie, the birder. “You shouldn’t feed birds in the Spring and Summer, you know”, she said. “They need to forage.” Crestfallen! My little good deed upsetting the organic balance of nature! And then I decided, screw that. Turns out I like operating a cheeseburger stand for birds. I get to see all the pretty ones.
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)
