by Ryan Ponto | Jan 4, 2017 | Pigeon Patrol's Services
HOUSTON – Every day for the last 10 years, the owner of a gas station at the 59 Southwest Freeway at Weslayan puts out a bag of feed for birds on the sidewalk.
For lunch, breakfast and dinner, the birds eat for free outside the Chevron.
“I feel inner peace,” owner Ishwar Desai said.
He said he loves animals and especially birds.
“The birds (were here flying around) and they were looking for the food so I give them a little food,” Desai said. “It’s really interesting, so I started giving more.”
Not everyone feels Desai’s passion for the birds.
I asked David Smith, a man getting gas, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your feelings towards birds?
“A four, and that’s being pretty generous,” Smith said.
At $19 a bag, the bird feed isn’t cheap, but fortunately, Desai has some support. He said some of his regular customers offer him money to keep paying for the feed.
“I feel inner peace. If I give them the food and then I see them eat the food, I really like it,” Desai 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 Ryan Ponto | Jan 3, 2017 | Bird Netting
Overcast with a chance of rain, only -3 Celsius outside and this is how 2017 arrives in our area.
Rock pigeons are freely clustered around a slice of offered white bread just across the street from CBC as I walk by. Two European starlings; European, because they were introduced around the 1890s in New York’s Central Park, fly from an open window area in one of the downtown renovation projects.
No doubt they have a warm temporary niche in one of the buildings at night and are leaving some gifts on the floor.
I have to kill some time while waiting for an appointment so I walk by several regulars on the street and make my way into the downtown mall that use to be Sudbury’s sole mecca. Winter promises to be cold for bird watching and nothing beats a warm head like the colourful touques of wool made in Nepal.
I decide to visit one of the more unique stores in the mall and check out his fine collection of hats and mitts. Entering the portal, I break a beam of hidden light and off goes a Christmas tune to announce an arrival. A very friendly and sincere greeting awaits from a gentleman sitting low behind a counter.
The New Year is a start of meeting new people and having new experiences. I casually ask the owner if Christmas was good to him and with a friendly response he says, “It was.” We get into a brief conversation about Buddha, Christ and other religions and how life can be good or bad, but to face these challenges, we can always think about others and how they may have had to cope with their individual and group challenges.
Quiet a conversation while looking for a hat! We ended our chance meeting on a friendly note with the caveat that a positive outlook certainly helps the day go by.
As I leave the mall, the outside walkway and snow triggers some reminiscent thoughts about the time the mall was called Bonimart, and a time when Eaton’s was here.
A bird we took for granted lived along the eaves of the upper parking lot and would use the Virginia creeper that used to attach itself to the walls of the adjacent buildings. House sparrows were introduced at the turn of the past century like the European starlings. They made their way across much of the country over the years and had been established in Greater Sudbury, numbering in the hundreds downtown.
Sudbury’s annual Christmas bird count says it all. In 1981, there were 1,361 house sparrows counted. In 1991, there were 162 counted. Ten years later in 2001, there were none found, and have not been seen since during the count.
Their disappearance is a mystery, but habitat changes, insect availability and a possible disease are not ruled out. The species can still be found in other larger cities like Toronto.
It might be expressed as part of the yin and yang of wildlife. Some species do well, become established and last a long time in a given area, while other species come across an obstacle that alters their lifestyle. Sudbury is no different in offering these changes as time moves on.
As for the hat, orange and white seems good this year.
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 | Jan 2, 2017 | Bird Deterrent Products
Possibly the world’s first domesticated bird, the pigeon, and its association with mankind is recorded in more than five-thousand-year-old Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The bird which over centuries has garnered a reputation for carrying messages, a symbol of peace that has also proved invaluable in wartime, has nowadays become Noakhali’s bird of hope. Across the district both established farmers and otherwise unemployed hobbyists are achieving success and economic self-reliance through raising pigeons.
Since he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Md Mohsin from Noakhali municipality’s Maijdee has been unemployed. “As I had no job, I started a pigeon farm with 50 pairs of birds. Already my flock has grown to 150 pairs,” he says. “After expenses I make a monthly profit of up to Tk 18,000.” Mohsin is looking for government or private sector assistance to help him expand.
Second year honours student Fazlur Rahman from Krishnarampur village in Sadar upazila began raising pigeons as a hobby, with ten pairs. “Already I have 125 breeding pairs at my pigeon farm,” he says.
Dedicated pigeon farmer Jamal Hossain Bishad, 38, from Sadar upazila meanwhile has established a larger operation on a floor in his rented house in Maijdee. “I have around 225 pigeon pairs. It’s a Tk. 2.5 lakh farm,” he says. “After costs like food and medicine for the birds and staff salaries I earn upwards of Tk. 30,000 per month, slightly less during winter.”
His colleague Dolon Kumar Nath, 42, houses his pigeon farm on the second floor of his own building which fronts Sadar upazila’s main road. “My farm is completely business oriented,” he says. “Currently I have 300 pairs of local and foreign pigeon varieties. I started the farm with Tk 3.5 lakh capital and now earn Tk 40,000 per month in profit.”
Several farmers expressed hopes that pigeon-rearing could prove to be a useful activity for the district’s drug-affected youths, to steer them clear of the menace.
Yet Noakhali’s pigeon industry faces a number of hurdles in operating with limited technical cooperation, no dedicated treatment facilities and no government financial assistance. While medicines for cattle, chickens and ducks are available in the market, for example, medicines designed specifically for pigeons aren’t. Pigeon farmers currently rely on medicines targeting other poultry to treat their flocks.
Nonetheless pigeon-rearing either as hobby or profession is growing in popularity. Recognising an opportunity, local youths are bringing different varieties of pigeons from the capital and Natore in particular, to be sold across Noakhali, Lakshmipur and Feni districts. Depending on the variety, a pigeon pair can sell for between Tk 3,000 and Tk 1.2 lakhs, according to farmers.
Indeed, inspired by the success of Noakhali’s professional pigeon farmers, many youths are simultaneously establishing their own flocks, on rooftops, in yards or even within their homes.
Noakhali’s District Livestock Officer Md Ziaur Rahman says there are at present 284 big and small pigeon farms in the district, housing an estimated 7,142 pairs of birds. “If the farmers visit our livestock office we do our best to provide them with advice,” he says, “though due to manpower shortages the service available to them isn’t always optimal.” Rahman says additional recruitment will be completed soon.
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 | Jan 1, 2017 | Animal Deterrent Products
Incoming US President Donald Trump threw a cat among the European pigeons this week after he said that the EU was heading for breakup and that he didn’t care much if that were to happen.
In interviews with British and German newspapers, Trump said a whole lot more too. He described Britain’s decision to split from the EU as a “great” move, and that more countries would follow the Brexit; he called German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door immigration policy a “disaster”; and on the NATO military alliance, the new president said it was “obsolete”.
The following day, EU leaders were huffing and puffing with rage and exasperation that Trump should dare be so disrespectful.
“Trump’s NATO, EU comments spark fury, fear across Europe,” reported the Washington Times.
Germany’s Merkel and French President Francois Hollande told Trump to mind his own business. EU foreign policy chief Federica Morgherini claimed that European states followed their own independent course and did not need Washington anyway. Former French prime minister Manuel Valls, always prone to histrionics, even went as far as decrying Trump for “declaring war on Europe”.
The hilarious thing is that Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, and the EU leaders have been for months claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the one who is secretly plotting the breakup of the European bloc and the transatlantic alliance.
But after all this rabid scaremongering against Russia, it is an American president, Donald Trump, who is publicly declaring that the days are numbered for the transatlantic status quo.
Russia did indeed welcome Trump’s comments about NATO being “obsolete”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “NATO is truly a relic of the past… its entire structure is dedicated to the idea of confrontation; of course, it can hardly be called a modern structure that meets the ideas of stability, sustainable development and security.”
Moscow also said that it welcomed the opportunity to normalize relations with Washington as Trump has indicated. He has intimated that he is prepared to lift economic sanctions that Washington imposed on Russia since 2014 over the Ukraine conflict.
Despite their pretentious bluster, the truth is that European leaders of all political shades have been absolute lackeys to Washington for the past several decades. Not one European state has dared to stand up to American foreign policy misconduct.
In reaction to Trump’s latest broadsides, European leaders are piously claiming to be independent from Washington. Nothing could be further from the truth about the current and past crop of European politicians.
Germany’s deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel hit back at Trump’s savaging of Merkel’s “disastrous” immigration policies. He said that the real cause of the refugee crisis in Europe was America’s military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia. Well, yes, that is true. But if Sigmar Gabriel knew that was the real cause, then why hasn’t Germany – the most powerful EU member – stood up to Washington to oppose its relentless warmongering.
The fact is that the EU has gone along with each and every US-led war around the world over the past 25 years. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya among others.
Look at Syria, for instance. The EU has imposed economic sanctions on that forsaken country, in line with Washington’s agenda for regime change, thus exacerbating the exodus of refugees. If the EU had some independent backbone, as it likes to pretend, then it should have firmly opposed the US-led covert intervention in Syria. But it didn’t. The EU is fully complicit.
The pernicious role of Britain has to be acknowledged here. No other member of the EU has been such an avid cheerleader for NATO and American atlanticist sway over European affairs. Britain has loyally followed the US into foreign wars, thereby dragging Europe into such follies. If Britain had not been a member of the EU, perhaps the bloc might have had more critical foreign policy, one that was more critical of Washington’s lawless depredations.
Ironically now, Britain is leaving the EU after 43 years of membership. But it bequeaths a legacy of subservience to Washington that all remaining EU members find themselves bound by.
Perhaps the clearest example of European servility to US foreign policy is its acquiescence to Russophobia and the hostile expansion of US-led military forces along Russia’s borders.
European governments have colluded with Washington to meddle in the affairs of Georgia and Ukraine and then seek to cover up the tracks of conflict by blaming Russia for the unrest. Moreover, the EU slavishly followed Washington’s lead to slap economic sanctions on Russia. Those sanctions have caused minimal disruption to America’s economy, but they have wreaked havoc on European farmers, workers and businesses.
The incumbent European governments are pathetic. Special mention must be given to French President Hollande, the most unpopular leader ever. To illustrate the puppet status, recall the Mistral helicopter-ship deal worth about $2 billion with Russia. Hollande axed the contract and hence hundreds of French jobs because the Americans instructed him to do so, allegedly to maintain a unified sanctions policy on Moscow.
Europe is facing several key national elections this year, in the Netherlands, France and Germany. As with other EU countries there is a popular revolt against the status quo. The mainstream media paint the opposition parties as extremist and racist. The media also claim that Russia is covertly subverting European democracies. This is just scapegoating. Closer to the truth is that ordinary EU citizens are fed up with governments that are in hock to a foreign power – Washington.
The atlanticist “alliance” has been nothing but a euphemism for Washington to dominate politically, financially and militarily over Europe. To the point where Europe has trashed its historic links and natural relations with Russia.
After decades of kowtowing to Washington, there is now a new US president who is snubbing the “loyal Europeans” and showing disregard for atlanticism.
Trump’s comment that he trusts Vladimir Putin equally with Angela Merkel is surely a sharp putdown to Europeans who have allowed his predecessors to dictate disastrous policies for the EU.
Under Trump, the US may well move to cancel its sanctions on Russia. What will European lackeys do then? Keep their own futile anti-Russian sanctions that are wrecking their economies, or sheepishly repeal the sanctions because the Americans have done so?
But by then it will be too late for the EU. The European Union is already teetering on implosion because for decades its leaders had no courage or vision to serve the interests of their citizens instead of Uncle Sam’s atlanticist designs.
Trump’s indifference towards European subservience and the NATO project is a potentially promising new direction to a more balanced international configuration, especially with regard to restoring relations with Russia.
It may not work out, of course. Trump has plenty of enemies at home among the Washington establishment who see atlanticist domination of Europe and antagonism towards Russia as a cornerstone of US global hegemonic ambitions.
Nevertheless, Trump’s skepticism towards the EU and NATO is setting the cat among the European pigeons. Because it is exposing them as impotent flunkies who have ruined their countries by prostrating themselves as pathetic dependents on American patronage.
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 | Dec 31, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent
Last week the Japanese islands were attacked by a great cold wave blasting south from Siberia. Even in the Kanto area nighttime temperatures dropped below freezing, and some of the more shaded ponds are now covered by a thin layer of ice. In the sekki, a traditional Asian calendar system that divides the solar year into 24 equal segments based on changes in weather and the natural world, we are still in the Shokan or “Small Cold.” This Friday, however, will mark the start of the Daikan or “Big Cold”!
But there is no cause for concern. The Daikan will last only until the Risshun or “Start of Spring” on Feb. 4. In fact, the winter Doyo starts today. Doyo are 18 day periods preceding the official start of each of the four major seasons. They are considered to be unstable times when the weather and other factors can change rapidly without warning.
Japanese traditional almanacs advise extreme caution when starting new projects during one of the Doyo. For people thinking of getting into bird-watching, however, right now is actually a great time to begin. Birds are easier to spot when the trees are leafless. Also, with food in the forests depleted, birds are far more likely to spend time on open fields and lawns.
All that is needed to start birdwatching is a pair of binoculars. For beginners I recommend 8-power magnification. More powerful models suffer from blurring due to hand shake, and also afford a very narrow field of vision, making it hard to fix them on a small bird. Weight and size are always a trade-off with image quality. Models with large front lenses produce brighter images, but are bulkier and heavier.
All birds are excellent subjects for study, even the ubiquitous feral pigeons and native turtle doves, both of which are common in local parks and gardens. Feral pigeons, called dobato or kawarabato in Japanese, are all derived from a species known as the rock dove, native to Europe and the Mediterranean, which was domesticated at least 5000 years ago and perhaps even much earlier. The first pigeons were brought to Japan between 1500 and 1000 years ago.
Pigeons have a fine homing sense, and when taken away and released will fly straight back to their home loft. Throughout history humans have capitalized on this ability by using them to carry messages. Specially bred and trained pigeons also compete in races, and pure white strains are released ceremoniously at weddings, anniversaries and other auspicious occasions.
Feral pigeons come in a variety of colors and markings, but those close to the original wild rock dove have dark gray and green heads and chests, with lighter gray bodies. The wings are light gray, with two black stripes on the upper surface. The base of a pigeon’s top bill is covered by a patch of waxy skin, called a cere (romaku), that protects the nasal cavities. Most members of the Columbidae or Dove Family (hatoka) have ceres, as do parrots and parakeets, and many birds of prey.
The eastern turtle dove is about the same size as the domestic pigeon, but has a gray or pinkish-gray head, neck and chest, and the brownish wing feathers are tipped with a beautiful shade of rufous. For this reason this species was formerly known in English as the rufous turtle dove.
At this time of year the bill and cere are black or dark gray, but during the spring and summer breeding season the cere, as well as the bare skin surrounding the eye, turn purplish. At any time of year the kijibato’s best field mark is a patch of light gray and black lines clearly visible on the side of the neck.
To Japanese ears these doves’ soft cooing sounds like “De-deh-poh-poh.” Hato or bato are the generic Japanese terms for dove or pigeon. The turtle doves’ formal name is kijibato or “pheasant-dove,” but most local people call them yamabato or “mountain-dove.” The kijibato is native to Japan, and is considered to be the same subspecies as that found across central and eastern Asia. The birds in the Ryukyu Islands, however, are designated a separate subspecies.
Many birds have a crop (ebukuro), a part of the gastrointestinal tract where food is stored before being digested. In the pigeons and doves a semi-liquid substance, called crop milk or pigeon milk, sloughs off from the inner lining of the crop. Crop milk is very rich in both protein and fats, and is used to feed the squibs, as pigeon chicks are called.
Both males and females produce crop milk, which allows the Columbidae to raise their broods without depending heavily on insects and worms.
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)
