by Pigeon Patrol | Mar 26, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services
Walls of glass that blur the boundaries between indoors and out may be an appealing design feature for homeowners, but for birds, it’s deadly.
That telltale thud against a window is a horrible sound to bird lovers. Millions of birds die each year from flying into windows. And these incidents happen more frequently during spring and fall migration.
“It’s a conservation issue that everyone can immediately act upon to make a difference,” said Christine Sheppard, Bird Collisions Campaign manager for American Bird Conservancy and one of the nation’s leading experts on window strikes. “Everyone can make their house friendly to birds.”
The problem is that birds can’t see glass. They see a reflection of their habitat and strike the glass as they attempt to fly through.
The most vulnerable are songbirds, which already face threats from climate change and habitat loss. “Unfortunately, hummingbirds are killed in large numbers from window strikes,” Sheppard said.
To help prevent window collisions, the experts at American Bird Conservancy have designed translucent ABC BirdTape. Most birds will avoid windows with vertical stripes spaced four inches apart or horizontal stripes spaced two inches apart. When the tape is applied according to these guidelines, birds will see a barrier to avoid, not space to fly through.
“The good news is that after you put tape up, you’ll forget it’s there,” she said.
There are also a variety of prefabricated decals that can be used as an alternative to tape as long as they are placed according to the above guidelines, she said. Tempera paint, which is available at most craft stores, is an inexpensive solution. It can also be used to create window designs that have the same effect as tape. The paint stays on even in the rain, but will easily come off with a damp sponge.
“Birds are accurate judges of their body size,” she said. They fly through tight spaces in their habitat, so the tape or decals have to be placed according to the guidelines to be effective.
“Window screens are the simplest solution,” Sheppard said. “Even if there’s a bit of a reflection, it’s less dangerous because they tend to bounce off.” Bird netting when stretched a few inches in front of a window can have a similar effect.
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 Pigeon Patrol | Mar 17, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Spikes
The mangy pigeons that congregate around Dúlra’s house like a gang of street drinkers are an eyesore. At least six sit on the roof waiting to be fed. When the first one arrived six months ago, Dúlra wasn’t bothered – it’s nice to have an extra species in the garden. But word of Dúlra’s generosity must have spread in the bird world, and soon there were half a dozen.
They know they’re on to a good thing – regular feeding with Dúlra’s high protein (and high cost!) bird mix.
Neighbours probably think he’s got a pigeon shed – but instead of prize-winning homers and racers, these birds are the common city feral type that you have to step over in Belfast city centre. The ‘rats with wings’ so derided by city dwellers the world over.
Dúlra spreads bird food liberally on the path every day for the finches, robins and other small birds. The pigeons sit on the roof like sentinels, the white-stained slates proof of their presence. And as soon as Dúlra’s magic mix of seeds, husks and peanuts is scattered, they’re down before the back door has even been shut.
At first Dúlra resented them. These birds are mongrels rather than pedigrees. They originated from the wild rock doves and stock doves, which bred with racing pigeons who never made it back home. Over time, they’ve come to depend on people like no other bird, their populations being most dense where our own populations are most dense – city centres. But truth is, while we may think there are a lot of pigeons, there are probably not much more than 10,000 in Belfast. Because we see them so often, they appear more common than they really are.
As the summer went on, Dúlra’s cold heart began to thaw. These birds were loyal. They weren’t heading to the hills any time soon, like the finches. And they were patient. They would sit staring at the garden for hours, waiting for their patron to spread his rich bounty. Probably more than anything else, their confidence was contagious. If these pigeons were landing in the garden and not nervously flying away at the first gust of wind, then other birds tended to stay put too.
One pigeon in particular was prettier than the rest. It looked just like the wild rock dove which it was obviously descended from. The rock dove is now very rare, its population having been diluted by breeding with feral doves. Dúlra saw one once on a cliff-face on Tory Island off Donegal, a solitary bird incubating its eggs.
This one in Dúlra’s garden had the same two black bars on its wing, and a healthy iridescent green sheen on its neck. The oil-rich mix of seeds that Dúlra offers will do its plumage no harm at all.
In the street Dúlra would have blanked it, but now that it was a regular in his garden, he found himself admiring the perfect plumage.
Tragically, it was those same feathers that he found scattered on the lawn this week after they’d been ripped asunder. Dúlra needn’t have minded about the pigeons becoming pests – the local sparrowhawk is his unpaid Rentokil agent.
One by one the pigeons have been picked off with the precision of a sniper. Dúlra actually saw the sparrowhawk stooping for her kill this week – it was certainly a ‘her’ because only the female sparrowhawk is big enough to kill a pigeon. She was hovering near the house, being pestered by a crow, when she suddenly folded her wings and fell like a stone into Dúlra’s garden. And a bit like the kids’ song ‘ten green bottles sitting on the wall’, Dúlra knew there would be one less pigeon in his garden.
Today there are just two pigeons on the roof. Dúlra feels like a guard on death row, fattening the two remaining birds up for their inevitable date with the executioner.
But now he’s on the side of the pigeons. Hopefully, somehow, he’ll help them see through the winter.
Glengormley Reader: I saw a flock of about 40 geese this week arriving in from the north, flying in a V-shape and honking excitedly.
Dúlra: They are probably white-fronted goose, gé bhánéadanach, which arrive from Greenland.
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 Pigeon Patrol | Mar 16, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Patrol's Services
Two women were allegedly assaulted after asking a man to stop feeding pigeons in Finsbury Park.
Police and paramedics from London Ambulance Service were called to the park at about 8.30am on Friday after two women sustained head and facial injuries.
A woman in her 30s had been at the park with her daughter and saw a man feeding the birds.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the woman asked the man to stop before she was allegedly assaulted.
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)
A second woman, who is in her 20s, intervened and was also assaulted, police said.
by Pigeon Patrol | Mar 15, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Bird Netting, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News
A HOME-owner says his garden has become a no-go zone because it is inundated with birds – making him the most pooed on man in Britain.
Fed-up Daniel Norman has got so sick of the raining excrement every time he steps outside he is demanding his local council takes immediate action.
He claims he is constantly plagued by a barrage of bird poo from pigeons roosting in a derelict building next door.
The 25-year-old is now wants council chiefs to board up the old pool hall which has become home to dozens of offenders.
Daniel lives behind the former Pot Black building in Plymouth, Devon, which has been left severely dilapidated after a fire ravaged it nine years ago.
He says pigeons have been nesting in the grade II listed property, which is now owned Plymouth City Council (PCC), and constantly drop their faeces in his garden – meaning he cannot even hang his washing out to dry.
Daniel lives in social housing owned by Sanctuary Housing but, according to the driver’s mate and warehouse worker, the housing association says it can’t do anything to rectify the problem.
He said: “I’ve been fighting this case for the last five years.
“Because the building is not boarded up, the pigeons are going in there and roosting. If it was boarded up, it wouldn’t be an issue.
“But that seems to be too much to ask.”
Daniel contacted the council and an inspector from environmental health visited his property offering to send a team “every week” to clean up the mess – but made no offer to board-up the windows.
In July, the council pushed through a compulsory purchase order to take responsibility for the sale of the building, previously belonging to the Mechanics Institute.
Labour’s Councillor Chris Penberthy, responsible for housing, said at the time that the interior was in a “filthy state” and inhabited by breeding pigeons who were “making a mess everywhere”.
Since the order, which was not contested by the owner, went through, it is now the council’s responsibility to maintain the building.
A Plymouth City Council spokeswoman said: “We are currently in the process of an enforced sale action under the Law of Property Act 1925.
“This process works in the same way as a mortgage company selling a property to recover mortgage arrears. This means that the council does not take ownership of the property, but it gives us the ability to sell it.
“We understand the frustrations of local residents over the state of the building which is why after repeated requests to the owners to sort out the building we took tough action.
“Whilst the sale is going through we will review the current situation of the building to see if there are any additional steps we can take to secure the building.”
A spokesperson from Sanctuary Housing said: “We sympathise with those living nearby and have repeatedly arranged for the garden to be cleaned.
“Our contractors also attempted to clear the area earlier this month, and we are speaking to Mr Norman in order to arrange an appointment so that the work can be carried out.”
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 Pigeon Patrol | Mar 11, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Pigeon Spikes
Dear Porky,
My two cats, George, age 7, and Elaine, age 2, mostly get along great.
I adopted Elaine a year ago to keep George company.
But every once in a while, for reasons that are not at all obvious to me, they will start hissing at each other, sometimes swatting, and then stalk away in a huff.
They haven’t hurt each other yet, but it worries me. What should I do?
Sally
Dear Sally,
Just maybe they’re getting cranky because you ignore them while you watch endless reruns on the TV.
Just sayin’.
No seriously, cats have occasional disagreements.
They can be, you know, “catty.”
Their behavior may include hissing, spitting, swatting or chasing. If cats occasionally hiss and swat and don’t cause injury, or if they take turns doing the chasing, not to worry.
Play aggression is not a cause for alarm.
But major altercations can become serious and should not be tolerated.
Howling, yowling, flattened ears, dilated pupils, raised hackles, arched back and puffy hair are indications that a battle is on the horizon; so, you need to intervene before they get to that stage.
Staring at each other with a twitching tail is an early warning sign.
Cat-to-cat aggression is one of the major behavior problems experienced by cat owners.
If cats have unresolved issues with one another, they may injure each other, spray your house to mark territory, become lethargic, hide, refuse to eat and subsequently lose weight, experience stress and fear and even become sick.
It doesn’t sound like you have a serious problem yet, but there are steps you can take to minimize the chances that it will become serious.
Basically, you can create an environment that promotes harmony between George and Elaine rather than one in which they have to compete for resources.
Provide more than one litter box in more than one location, and let them decide for themselves which to use.
Providing a food dish for each cat or feeding stations at multiple locations can help reduce competition for food.
Multi-level cat trees or shelves make use of vertical space within the home and give cats optional places to hang out.
The more opportunity for cats to have their own spots, the better.
And it goes without saying that your cats should be neutered.
They have enough things to argue with each other about without adding sex to the mix.
If George and Elaine begin what appears to be a serious fight, interrupt them.
Make an obnoxious loud noise by shaking a jar of pennies, snapping your fingers, or clapping your hands.
If that doesn’t work, blast them with a stream of water or throw a blanket over them.
Once they stop fighting, separate them and reintroduce them gradually, even if they have lived together for some time.
Make sure they are settled before putting them together again.
Never ever try to separate fighting cats with your hands! It could result in injury to your hands, face or other parts of your body.
If you are bitten by a cat seek medical attention right away as cat bites are unusually infectious.
The Oswego County Humane Society provides spay/neuter services and assistance, fostering and adoption of animals in urgent need, humane education programs, and information and referrals to animal lovers throughout Oswego County.
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 Pigeon Patrol | Mar 2, 2016 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Netting
A PLYMOUTH man says his day was ruined when an army of more than 100 seagulls and pigeons suddenly swarmed on his car and started pooing all over it.
Arnold Barnes said he was enjoying a visit to Devils Point with his wife when the incident happened.
Mr Barnes, from Crownhill, blames two women who brought carrier bags full of food to feed the hungry birds.
He said “at least 100 seagulls and pigeons” immediately flocked to the shoreline and pooed on cars so badly that some motorists sped off to avoid them.
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)
