by Ryan Ponto | May 6, 2017 | Bird Netting
Residents of a Devon town have criticised a supermarket and pest control company after a pair of pigeons died after allegedly being trapped in nets for more than a week.
Ilfracombe resident Lynda Godliman said she was ‘absolutely furious’ about the way in which the animals died at the town’s branch of Tesco on the Old Barnstaple Road.
Lynda shared this picture of the dead pigeons to local Facebook group Gossip Around Ilfracombe, saying: “Two pigeons trapped behind the netting for over a week at Tesco, apparently Rentokil was supposed to be releasing them, bit late now their dead, obviously died because of lack of food and water, shocking.”
Her anger was shared by many other members of the group, who left comments such as:
“Horrible way to die, poor pigeons.”
“No excuse for causing suffering – they might be rats with wings and vermin, but any kind of pest control has to be humane.”
“I’m disgusted with the whole scenario and will be talking to the manager.”
The Tesco store in Ilfracombe
Diana Lewis, founder of the North Devon Animal Ambulance charity, said told DevonLive she had received several complaints about the matter.
She said: “I have spoken to Tesco today and they have assured me that it won’t happen again. I believe the contractor they employ have to come from far away to carry out this work.
“I have told Tesco that if they discover birds that have become trapped, I will always come rapidly and get it sorted.”
Diana Lewis of North Devon Animal Ambulance
Diana said there is netting all over buildings and businesses in North Devon which is designed to birds like seagulls and pigeons nesting.
She said: “Almost all of it has been installed by professionals and is generally effective. It is one of the least offensive methods of control.
“However sometimes it breaks and birds can get in but not out, which often leads to a very slow and miserable death. When it is installed by amateurs it can be very cruel and unpleasant for the birds.”
Diana added: “In fairness to Tesco, I usually have a very quick response from them and all their local stores frequently contact me about lost dogs and cats or injured birds. It is unusual for them not to respond fast on animal welfare issues.”
A Tesco spokesman said: “We have installed netting beneath the store canopy at our Ilfracombe Superstore in the interests of customer health and safety.
“Unfortunately two pigeons became trapped in the netting and we called our contractor to release the birds. We apologise for any distress to customers.”
DevonLive contacted the pest control company but no one was available for comment.
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 5, 2017 | Bird Netting
Luckily, staff at a car wash in Blackburn spotted the pink pigeon and called for help from the RSPCA.
The charity’s Inspector Nina Small who came to the pink pigeon’s rescue admitted the bird was one of strangest things she has ever witnessed.
Inspector Small said: “I’ve never seen anything like it in 15 years of this job.
“He was covered in a pink, greasy paint-like substance from head to tail with only his eyes clear.
“And he was in a car wash of all places. Perhaps he was trying to clean himself off…
“After a wash, his feathers were still stained pink. The amount of paint coming off his body was astonishing.
“We can’t be sure whether the bird had been deliberately covered in paint or whether he’d fallen in something.
“If someone has intentionally painted the pigeon’s feathers then I’d be very concerned for other birds and animals in the area.
“This is a cruel and unnecessary thing to do to an animal and could cause health problems, impair his ability to fly and make him more vulnerable to predators.”
Predators such as feral cars and introduced rats along with loss of forest habitat were the reason that Mauritius pink pigeons all but disappeared from the Indian Ocean island notorious for witnessing the 17th Century extinction of the dodo.
In 1991, there were only 10 pink pigeons left alive but work by the Durrell Conservation Trust nurtured the critically endangered species so that around 500 now exist.
For Blackburn’s pink pigeon, a recovery programme is also underway to nurse him back to flying fitness.
Inspector Small added: “Luckily this pigeon wasn’t injured and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to clean all of the paint off of his feathers and get him back to good condition so he can be released back into the wild where he belongs.
“I just hope his feathers haven’t been permanently damaged and that his flight won’t be affected, which could mean he will need to stay in care much longer before being released.”
by Ryan Ponto | May 5, 2017 | Bird Netting
Logan Dean gently cradled a pigeon named Pablo in his hands.
He stood inside the backyard loft where Logan and his dad, Scott, feed, water and care for dozens of racing homers — pigeons bred and trained to use their instinctive ability to fly long distances and find their way back home.
Scott guided a half dozen of the birds to a platform aside the loft, while a few pigeons fluttered their wings and moved from one perch to another. May sunshine beamed through screened windows, lighting the shelter.
“It’s so addicting,” Scott said of the hobby. “The birds are so calming and peaceful. Sometimes we’ll even bring lawn chairs out here and just sit and talk and watch the birds.”
And occasionally Pablo, 15-year-old Logan’s favorite, sits on the teenager’s shoulder in the Deans’ living room, watching TV with the family.
Logan and Scott are among 20 members of the Crossroads Racing Pigeon Club, which has roots dating to the 1950s. The homing ability of pigeons can be traced back 5,000 years, according to the American Racing Pigeon Union. The father-son Dean duo just got started last year, and Logan’s glad they did.
“I love being able to do this with my dad and come out here and be able to do this with the birds,” Logan said. “They just fascinate me.”
The Crossroads ranges from firefighters, such as Scott, to a retired delivery driver, doctor, restaurant manager, teachers and other vocations. Some care for 30 pigeons, while others maintain as many as 500.
The members’ ages run from 94 to 15, said Ron Deisher, club president. They come from as far north as Montezuma to Bruceville in southern Indiana, from eastern Illinois to the outskirts of Indianapolis.
They raise and train racing homers to fly back to the birds’ home lofts, where they know to find food, safety, shelter and daily attention. It’s a gradual process. Scott and Logan keep a couple dozen breeding pigeons, and their eggs hatch in about 18 days. When the racing homers hit five weeks old, they’ll start flying. Those flights begin with a simple release at the home loft, letting them fly and return. Soon, the Deans drive the birds to a spot 10 miles away, and release them to fly back home. Eventually, the pigeons can find their way home from distances of hundreds of miles, often from release points designated along Interstate 70, Scott explained.
Some perils exist. Hawks and falcons prey on racing homers occasionally, Deisher said. Also, hunters sometimes mistake pigeons for doves and shoot them. Some are killed by hitting utility power lines. The vast majority, Deisher emphasized, safely reach their destination, motivated by the desire for the food, water and comfort of their home lofts.
A natural GPS, of sorts, enables homing pigeons to navigate even confusing territory and return home, according to a report in ZME Science this spring. The story cited two curious findings. First, the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that pigeons use low-frequency waves emitted by the earth to map their path. Second, the creatures also may be able to relay knowledge among each other, Oxford University scientists said, an ability previously thought to be limited to humans and primates.
Return is ‘exciting part’
Pigeons in the Crossroads club are putting that uncanny knack to use right now. The group’s spring racing season, for older pigeons (those born before this year), is under way and continues into June. Its fall season runs from August to October and features the young racers, all born in 2017. Members drive their pigeons to a race starting point on a Friday evening, leave them with organizers overnight and drive home. Officials release the birds at sunrise and alert the competing members by email.
Each member awaits the birds’ arrivals to their home lofts, where an electronic timer records the pigeons’ identities and flight time and speed. (Some fly longer or shorter distances, depending on the owner’s home location.) Those times and speeds are relayed to the organizers, who calculate the order of finish and prize money, and all of the club’s $100-per-bird race entry fees go toward those prizes, said Walt Williams, a longtime member.
Racing homers’ flight speed averages about 45 mph, so a club member may wait more than two hours for a pigeon to return from a 100-mile race.
“That’s the exciting part,” Scott Dean said, grinning.
Pigeons fly home from incredible distances, said Deisher, a 58-year-old former college instructor and insurance businessman from Darwin, Illinois, who now raises and sells the birds for a living. He’s released his own racing homers at Kansas City, Missouri, and added, “You can’t drive on the interstate and beat ‘em home.”
“These birds are athletes,” Deisher said, “and you treat them just like that.”
Along with food and water, racing homers typically get vitamins, minerals and any needed medications, Scott Dean said. Tending to them requires time. As a firefighter who often works 24-hour shifts, Scott is grateful to have his son’s active partnership. “He does as much with them as I do,” Scott said.
Youth involvement crucial
The involvement of young people in the sport matters to both the Crossroads club and the national organization. The American Racing Pigeon Union hired Karen Clifton, whose background was in marketing, to target growth in youth participation, she said by telephone from the group’s base in Oklahoma City. Its overall membership grew from 7,100 in 1999 to just under 10,000 this year, but junior membership has tripled.
That increase “is a good thing, because you want to get young people involved to perpetuate it,” Clifton said.
Williams began the hobby as an 8-year-old. Ed Chambers, a teacher in his hometown of Hymera, started a club in 1958 for kids to raise and show pigeons at county fairs. By the early 1960s, that group — the Sycamore Haven 4-H Pigeon Club — included adults and continued until 1996. The following year, the West Central Indiana Racing Pigeon Club formed, evolving in 2006 into the Crossroads club, which keeps a “working man’s” affordability, Williams said, by spreading prize money to several places in the finish order.
Williams’ interest hasn’t wavered since boyhood. Now 68, he lives south of Fairbanks in rural Sullivan County.
“I just enjoy it,” Williams said. “The birds are relaxing and a lot of fun. And, there’s a sense of accomplishment when a bird that you raised comes back in at the end of a 300-mile race.”
Americans’ fascination with homing pigeons rose after their heralded exploits in World War I and World War II. Allied forces used the birds to deliver vital messages in dangerous zones where radio communications were either disabled or too risky, according to American Racing Pigeon Union archives. They crossed seas and endured harsh weather, yet “provided the balance between victory and defeat” in some situations.
“They delivered,” Clifton said.
Today, local and regional clubs do presentations to church, scouting, farm and service to help spread the racing and homing pigeons’ popularity, Clifton said. While most pigeon fanciers live in California and Texas, the Midwest makes up nearly half of the national organization’s membership.
Here in western Indiana, Scott Dean is happy with the niche he and Logan found in the sport. “A lot of people don’t realize how much fun these birds are,” Scott said inside his loft, surrounded by cooing pigeons. “I’ve had a lot of hobbies over the years, and this one, by far, I enjoy the most.”
Williams discovered that joy long ago. While he likes the racing, sometimes he’s happy to just observe the birds.
“I like to sit on the porch,” he said, “and watch.”
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 4, 2017 | Bird Netting
Logan Dean gently cradled a pigeon named Pablo in his hands.
He stood inside the backyard loft where Logan and his dad, Scott, feed, water and care for dozens of racing homers — pigeons bred and trained to use their instinctive ability to fly long distances and find their way back home.
Scott guided a half dozen of the birds to a platform aside the loft, while a few pigeons fluttered their wings and moved from one perch to another. May sunshine beamed through screened windows, lighting the shelter.
“It’s so addicting,” Scott said of the hobby. “The birds are so calming and peaceful. Sometimes we’ll even bring lawn chairs out here and just sit and talk and watch the birds.”
And occasionally Pablo, 15-year-old Logan’s favorite, sits on the teenager’s shoulder in the Deans’ living room, watching TV with the family.
Logan and Scott are among 20 members of the Crossroads Racing Pigeon Club, which has roots dating to the 1950s. The homing ability of pigeons can be traced back 5,000 years, according to the American Racing Pigeon Union. The father-son Dean duo just got started last year, and Logan’s glad they did.
“I love being able to do this with my dad and come out here and be able to do this with the birds,” Logan said. “They just fascinate me.”
The Crossroads ranges from firefighters, such as Scott, to a retired delivery driver, doctor, restaurant manager, teachers and other vocations. Some care for 30 pigeons, while others maintain as many as 500.
The members’ ages run from 94 to 15, said Ron Deisher, club president. They come from as far north as Montezuma to Bruceville in southern Indiana, from eastern Illinois to the outskirts of Indianapolis.
They raise and train racing homers to fly back to the birds’ home lofts, where they know to find food, safety, shelter and daily attention. It’s a gradual process. Scott and Logan keep a couple dozen breeding pigeons, and their eggs hatch in about 18 days. When the racing homers hit five weeks old, they’ll start flying. Those flights begin with a simple release at the home loft, letting them fly and return. Soon, the Deans drive the birds to a spot 10 miles away, and release them to fly back home. Eventually, the pigeons can find their way home from distances of hundreds of miles, often from release points designated along Interstate 70, Scott explained.
Some perils exist. Hawks and falcons prey on racing homers occasionally, Deisher said. Also, hunters sometimes mistake pigeons for doves and shoot them. Some are killed by hitting utility power lines. The vast majority, Deisher emphasized, safely reach their destination, motivated by the desire for the food, water and comfort of their home lofts.
A natural GPS, of sorts, enables homing pigeons to navigate even confusing territory and return home, according to a report in ZME Science this spring. The story cited two curious findings. First, the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that pigeons use low-frequency waves emitted by the earth to map their path. Second, the creatures also may be able to relay knowledge among each other, Oxford University scientists said, an ability previously thought to be limited to humans and primates.
Return is ‘exciting part’
Pigeons in the Crossroads club are putting that uncanny knack to use right now. The group’s spring racing season, for older pigeons (those born before this year), is under way and continues into June. Its fall season runs from August to October and features the young racers, all born in 2017. Members drive their pigeons to a race starting point on a Friday evening, leave them with organizers overnight and drive home. Officials release the birds at sunrise and alert the competing members by email.
Each member awaits the birds’ arrivals to their home lofts, where an electronic timer records the pigeons’ identities and flight time and speed. (Some fly longer or shorter distances, depending on the owner’s home location.) Those times and speeds are relayed to the organizers, who calculate the order of finish and prize money, and all of the club’s $100-per-bird race entry fees go toward those prizes, said Walt Williams, a longtime member.
Racing homers’ flight speed averages about 45 mph, so a club member may wait more than two hours for a pigeon to return from a 100-mile race.
“That’s the exciting part,” Scott Dean said, grinning.
Pigeons fly home from incredible distances, said Deisher, a 58-year-old former college instructor and insurance businessman from Darwin, Illinois, who now raises and sells the birds for a living. He’s released his own racing homers at Kansas City, Missouri, and added, “You can’t drive on the interstate and beat ‘em home.”
“These birds are athletes,” Deisher said, “and you treat them just like that.”
Along with food and water, racing homers typically get vitamins, minerals and any needed medications, Scott Dean said. Tending to them requires time. As a firefighter who often works 24-hour shifts, Scott is grateful to have his son’s active partnership. “He does as much with them as I do,” Scott said.
Youth involvement crucial
The involvement of young people in the sport matters to both the Crossroads club and the national organization. The American Racing Pigeon Union hired Karen Clifton, whose background was in marketing, to target growth in youth participation, she said by telephone from the group’s base in Oklahoma City. Its overall membership grew from 7,100 in 1999 to just under 10,000 this year, but junior membership has tripled.
That increase “is a good thing, because you want to get young people involved to perpetuate it,” Clifton said.
Williams began the hobby as an 8-year-old. Ed Chambers, a teacher in his hometown of Hymera, started a club in 1958 for kids to raise and show pigeons at county fairs. By the early 1960s, that group — the Sycamore Haven 4-H Pigeon Club — included adults and continued until 1996. The following year, the West Central Indiana Racing Pigeon Club formed, evolving in 2006 into the Crossroads club, which keeps a “working man’s” affordability, Williams said, by spreading prize money to several places in the finish order.
Williams’ interest hasn’t wavered since boyhood. Now 68, he lives south of Fairbanks in rural Sullivan County.
“I just enjoy it,” Williams said. “The birds are relaxing and a lot of fun. And, there’s a sense of accomplishment when a bird that you raised comes back in at the end of a 300-mile race.”
Americans’ fascination with homing pigeons rose after their heralded exploits in World War I and World War II. Allied forces used the birds to deliver vital messages in dangerous zones where radio communications were either disabled or too risky, according to American Racing Pigeon Union archives. They crossed seas and endured harsh weather, yet “provided the balance between victory and defeat” in some situations.
“They delivered,” Clifton said.
Today, local and regional clubs do presentations to church, scouting, farm and service to help spread the racing and homing pigeons’ popularity, Clifton said. While most pigeon fanciers live in California and Texas, the Midwest makes up nearly half of the national organization’s membership.
Here in western Indiana, Scott Dean is happy with the niche he and Logan found in the sport. “A lot of people don’t realize how much fun these birds are,” Scott said inside his loft, surrounded by cooing pigeons. “I’ve had a lot of hobbies over the years, and this one, by far, I enjoy the most.”
Williams discovered that joy long ago. While he likes the racing, sometimes he’s happy to just observe the birds.
“I like to sit on the porch,” he said, “and watch.”
by Ryan Ponto | May 4, 2017 | Bird Netting
PITTSBURG, Kan. — If the neighbors happened to hear Bob Mangile in his front yard earlier this spring hooting at a towering pecan tree, they didn’t let on that they thought it was odd.
“Hoo-hoo hoooooo hoo-hoo,” he called, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify the sound.
He was tenaciously trying to get a great horned owl to reveal more of itself than just its iconic ear tufts, which could be seen — but just barely — in the crotch of the tree.
On this day, his efforts were fruitless.
No matter. Inside, in his many photo files, he has evidence for anyone interested that there was yet another owl species nesting and rearing young just feet from the Pittsburg bungalow he shares on three acres with his wife, Liz.
Giving up on the owl, Mangile moved from the front yard to the back to say hello to more wildlife; first chickens, then a squirrel he feeds by hand, then a few hundred pigeons and lastly, a wren renting a coffee can in his workshop. Soon, when the weather is warm enough, he’ll add bullfrogs, salamanders and turtles to the list.
Forty years ago, none of it was here.
“It was a naked, bare horse pasture when we moved here,” Mangile said.
Today, it’s a wildlife sanctuary, certified by the state and filled with plant and animal life. But the couple are not done yet.
“It takes 40 years to grow a forest, but it takes much longer for those trees to die off and allow woodpeckers, squirrels and so on to nest in hollowed out trunks and stumps,” Mangile said. “Folks do not realize that a view of a lot of green trees is not a complete forest.”
Wild child
Mangile grew up in Chicago, an unlikely place to develop an affinity for nature. It was a childhood friend there who unwittingly introduced him to caring for pigeons.
“He got a BB gun for Christmas, and he wanted to show me how good he was with it,” Mangile said. “He shot a feral pigeon off of a bungalow, and it tumbled to the ground and we caught it.”
With an injured wing, it couldn’t fly. But it laid an egg that night.
Lacking any other nesting material, the two friends cut a hole in most of the pages of an old book and made a bowl-like structure and put the egg in it. They watched and waited.
“It never hatched, of course, but that was how my love affair with taking care of pigeons started,” Mangile said.
About the same time, Liz was growing up in Southeast Kansas, becoming an angler at a young age. She learned to seine and fish on the Neosho River, where her dad would awaken her during the night to run lines. She has fond memories of those days.
Today, she doesn’t mind that Bob has around 300 pigeons in backyard coops. He’s a self-taught expert on pigeon genetics and earlier this spring sent samples of the “blood feathers” of several of his pigeons to the University of Utah. There, as part of a DNA sequencing project, they are being tested for the relationship of two unique genes as they relate to blindness or vision impairment.
Nor does she mind that he actively encourages broad-headed skinks by creating habitat — dead trees, stumps and rock piles — in their yard. By doing so, he’s developed a breeding population of the skinks, which are on the threatened species list in Kansas.
Birds of a feather
Both founders of the Sperry-Galligar Audubon Chapter some 20 years ago and still active members, the couple enjoy feathered wildlife best of all.
They’ve built countless bird houses for others, are fixtures at the chapter’s annual birdseed sale to raise funds for projects, help to coordinate the annual Christmas bird count, and for years, Bob has kept tedious records of the fledging success of fellow bluebirders who keep nesting boxes.
He was elated when owls began nesting here. First, it was screech owls who chose a box on a tree in the back pasture. The owls would often visit the squirrel boxes he installed by the back door, popping up at dusk and sitting in the openings for awhile, sometimes calling into the night.
Then, barred owls took up residence. Not to be confused with barn owls, they’re the ones that call “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” They fledged babies in the backyard as well, then moved to the huge pecan tree out front.
Again last year, in the pecan tree, the barred owls nested. There were no babies — at least none that Mangile could see — and he speculated that a great horned owl made lunch of them.
This year, it was a great horned owl that nested there in the pecan tree. Mangile isn’t sure it was successful, as it disappeared about the time he expected a hatching.
Hands on
Mangile paused for a moment on his jaunt around the acreage to call to a squirrel and feed it by hand. It’s a common occurrence, he said — it knows his voice. Moments later, a chicken approached and allowed him to pick it up. And when he reached inside one of his many coops, pigeons allowed him to handle them.
“A few years ago, a barred owl baby fell from the tree, and I picked it up and put it back in a different tree on our west fence line,” Mangile recalled.
It stayed for a few days before hopping south from tree to tree, then taking flight.
“I’ve had bullfrogs tame enough to touch at my pond out back,” he said. “And Boxie the Box Turtle — it would come up for food and allow me to handle it without any fear. Type in ‘Boxie the turtle eating’ in YouTube, and you can see some video.”
Mangile, who retired years ago from McNally Manufacturing, said he’s been interested in nature and had an affinity for wildlife for as long as he can remember.
“People ask how long, and I just say, ‘I guess I was born this way’,” 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)
