In January 2019, a child died in a Scottish hospital after developing a fungal infection caused by exposure to pigeon droppings. An elderly patient also died in the same hospital of another condition that was exacerbated by exposure to pigeon droppings. It was determined that both patients were exposed to the contaminants via the ventilation system, which was found to contain pigeon droppings. These deaths brought to the forefront a question that many people who are living with pigeon infestations have: in addition to being disruptive, are pigeons actually dangerous? Here are the facts you need to know.
Pigeon droppings contain bacteria and fungi that can cause disease.
Exposure to pigeon droppings can lead to a number of different diseases. Some of the most common infections associated with pigeons are:
· E. coli: E. coli infections are usually the result of pigeon droppings being present in water or in food that is later consumed. This infection causes nausea, abdominal cramps, fever, and vomiting.
· Histoplasmosis: This is a dangerous fungal infection that affects the lungs, or rarely, other parts of the body. It causes flu-like symptoms, including fever, shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, and loss of appetite. It can be fatal in severe cases.
· Cryptococcus: This is another fungal infection that affects the lungs and can spread to the brain. In its early stages, it can cause a cough, chest pain, fever, and shortness of breath. When it spreads to the lungs, it causes headaches, neck pain, changes in behavior, confusion, and sensitivity to light. It can also be fatal.
· Psittacosis: Psittacosis is a bacterial infection that causes fever, headaches, a rash, and can lead to pneumonia, if left untreated.
· Candidiasis: This fungal infection can affect multiple parts of the body, including the mouth, lungs, urogenital tract, and skin. This infection may require prolonged periods of antifungal medications to treat.
· Salmonellosis: Pigeon droppings may contain the bacteria salmonella, which can cause this infection. Typically, people are exposed to these bacteria when pigeon droppings come into contact with food or food preparation surfaces. This infection causes nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps.
Pigeons also carry other potential health risks.
It is not just the droppings of pigeons that are dangerous. Pigeons themselves can carry mites and fleas, which can then attach to your pets or enter your home, causing skin irritation and itchiness. They can also spread infections through bites that are dangerous to both people and pets.
Pigeons can also carry West Nile virus. Although people are unlikely to contract West Nile virus directly from pigeons, it is still important to avoid removing any dead pigeons from your property without the help of a professional for this reason.
People with weakened immune systems are most at risk.
The infections that pigeons are likely to transmit do not affect everyone at the same rate. Many healthy adults are able to fight off infections caused by exposure to bacteria and fungi from pigeon droppings. If they do become ill, then they are likely to have very mild infections.
However, although it is always possible for someone who is healthy to become very ill from these conditions, other people are more at risk. Infants and children are more likely to experience severe symptoms when they are exposed to a disease via pigeon droppings. People who are immuno-compromised, such as people with HIV or who are undergoing chemotherapy, also have a higher risk of developing severe symptoms and complications. Lastly, the elderly are prone to severe symptoms from pigeon-related diseases.
Even without exposure to a disease, some people may have allergy symptoms, including respiratory problems, rashes, and itchiness, as a result of a pigeon infestation near their home or business.
For safety reasons, only professionals should handle pigeon control.
If you have a pigeon infestation, it’s important to deal with the issue as soon as possible. However, trying to get rid of pigeons and clean up their droppings on your own is not safe. Pigeon control professionals are trained in safe management techniques and have the proper equipment required to clean up after a pigeon infestation safely.
One of the biggest risks of cleaning up pigeon droppings on your own is that you could release dust into the air that contains bacteria and fungi that cause infection. Not only would you be at risk from inhaling the bacteria and fungi yourself, but you could also inadvertently introduce the contaminants into the HVAC system in your home, allowing them to spread into your indoor air and putting your family at risk.
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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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When the leader of a flock goes the wrong way, what will the flock do?
With human beings, nobody can be sure. But with homing pigeons, the answer is that they find their way home anyway.
Either the lead pigeon recognizes that it has no clue and falls back into the flock, letting birds that know where they are going take over, or the flock collectively decides that the direction that it is taking just doesn’t feel right, and it doesn’t follow.
Several European scientists report these findings in a stirring report in Biology Letters titled, “Misinformed Leaders Lose Influence Over Pigeon Flocks.”
Isobel Watts, a doctoral student in zoology at Oxford, conducted the study with her advisers, Theresa Burt de Perera and Dora Biro, and with the participation of Mate Nagy, a statistical physicist from Hungary, who is affiliated with several institutions, including Oxford and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Biro, who studies social behavior in primates as well as pigeons, said that the common questions that ran through her work were “about group living and what types of challenges and opportunities it brings.”
She and her colleagues at Oxford have pioneered a method of studying flock behavior that uses very-fine-resolution GPS units, which the birds wear in pigeon-size backpacks.
The devices record a detailed position for each bird a number of times a second. Researchers in Budapest and Oxford developed software to analyze small movements and responses of every bird in a flock.
With this method, the scientists can identify which pigeons are leading the way. They can build a picture of how each bird responds to changes in the flight of other birds.
The consistent leaders were often fast fliers and occupied the first position in the group of flying birds. Other birds followed them.
But what if one day, a leader flew in the wrong direction?
The researchers arranged to feed the leaders misinformation by putting them in lofts with artificial light for a few days. By shifting when the lights went on and off, compared with the actual external schedule of light and dark, the researchers could shift the pigeons’ internal clocks a few hours forward or back.
Pigeons navigate by using the position of the sun and an internal clock, so the change in the clock threw off their sense of direction and they didn’t fly toward home at all.
But the pigeon flock corrected its flight path, and went the right way.
Dr. Biro doesn’t know exactly how they corrected. The followers all had the right information, so they might have collectively said, “this guy’s wrong, let’s not follow him,” Dr. Biro said.
“Or, the leader said, ‘Something’s wrong here,’” and fell back into the flock, “effectively choosing not to lead,” Dr. Biro said, and another pigeon, that knew the time of day, led the way.
Sadly, these kinds of decisions by pigeon flocks offer no reassurance to humans who think political leaders are misinformed or misdirected.
The pigeons don’t communicate directly about where they are flying. The flock changes its flight path because of split-second reactions to position changes by other birds. There’s no decision-making process remotely similar to, say, an election.
But knowledge of how the pigeons work might be useful in creating swarms of small robots for activities like search and rescue. If researchers can reduce the decision-making process of a flock to a few simple rules about who follows whom, and when, those rules might be applied to robot groups.
Then the group of robots might be able to make some of its own decisions, at least about where to go or how to get there.
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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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Many birds travel in flocks, sometimes migrating over thousands of miles. But how do the birds decide who will lead the way? Researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on November 25 now have some new insight based on studies in homing pigeons. For pigeons, it seems, leadership is largely a question of speed.
“This changes our understanding of how the flocks are structured and why flocks of this species have consistent leadership hierarchies,” says Dora Biro of the University of Oxford.
Previous studies had shown that flock leadership is unrelated to social dominance. Giving followers extra training flights doesn’t promote them to a position of leadership, either. The new findings offer an elegantly simple explanation for the phenomenon of leadership in birds, with important implications for how spatial knowledge is generated and retained in navigating flocks.
While many birds travel in flocks, homing pigeons are domestic and more easily studied than most. “We can control the composition of the flocks and the starting points for their homeward journeys,” says Benjamin Pettit, the first author of the new study. “We also have a good understanding of their individual spatial cognition, in particular how their homing routes develop over repeated flights in the same area.”
Recent developments in sensor technology also make it possible to explore with exquisite precision how pigeon flocks are coordinated. The latest GPS loggers allow the researchers to track not only the birds’ overall routes, but also the sub-second time delays with which they react to each other while flying as a flock.
In the new study, the researchers compared pigeons’ relative influence over flock direction to their solo flight characteristics. Their studies showed that a pigeon’s degree of leadership could be predicted by its speed in earlier flights.
In solo flights, leaders were no better than followers in forging a straight path. In other words, they didn’t excel in navigation ability, at least not at first. When the researchers tested the birds individually after a series of flock flights, however, they found that leaders had learned straighter homing routes than followers.
“Some birds are naturally faster and consistently get to the front, where they end up doing more of the navigation, which means on future flights they know the way better,” Biro says. “You can compare this to a ‘passenger-driver’-like effect: drivers in a car have to pay attention while passengers are often unable to recall the route they were driven along, especially if they remained passive in the navigation process.”
While it’s often tempting to take an anthropocentric view of leadership, the findings come as a reminder that leadership can arise as an unavoidable consequence of individual differences within a population. A very simple, self-organizing mechanism–such as that based on variation in speed–is sufficient for leadership to arise. In addition, the new findings offer a mechanism through which leaders can improve in their roles over time, making increasingly better decisions that others can follow.
“Our findings broaden the range of species and situations in which we would expect to see leadership and explain how leadership and competence can naturally come to correlate,” Pettit says.
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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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What would you call a flock of flamingos, a swarm of swallows, or a group of eagles? Different birds have different collective nouns to describe large groups, such as a raft, a band, a host, a chime, and even a kettle. While many of these terms are obsolete, seldom used, or just plain silly, they are still unique and distinctive names that are familiar to birders. Many flock names are descriptive not only of the group of birds but also of their behavior or personalities. Birds flock together mostly as a safety mechanism, for example. Birders who understand these esoteric words and associated behaviors and can apply them to the appropriate birds will enjoy birding even more.
What Is a Flock?
Not every group of birds is automatically a flock. The two characteristics that generally constitute a flock are:
6 Sounds Birds Make and What They Mean
Numbers: Counting birds can give you a hint. Just two or three birds are not usually a flock. But there is no set minimum number of birds that are needed to call a group a flock. In general, larger groups are always considered flocks, while smaller groups may be flocks if the birds are not often seen in groups. For example, gregarious birds such as gulls, ducks, and starlings are often seen in very large groups, so just a half dozen of these birds together would not usually be called a flock. Less social birds, however, such as hummingbirds or grosbeaks, would be considered a flock if there were only a few birds since they are much less likely to gather in larger groups.
Species: Any large group of birds, no matter how many different species make up the group, can be called a flock if only a general flock term is used. The more unique, specialized terms, however, are only used for single-species flocks. The exception is when all the species that make up the flock are still in the same related family. A flock of sparrows, for example, can still be called a knot, flutter, host, quarrel, or crew even if several sparrow species are part of the group. A group of wading birds, however, is just a flock if there are herons, godwits, egrets, flamingos, storks, and plovers all mixed in the crowd, as all these birds have different collective nouns for their species.
Fun Fact
A flock of crows is known as a murder, a name given to these smart, social creatures because they were once thought of as omens of death, scavenging for food where there were dead bodies.
Why Do Birds Fly Together?
Birds form clusters of organized groups, called flight flocks, for a reason. Experts believe flocks increase the odds of survival and safety. Flocking can increase the possibility of finding food and protecting each other from trouble and predators. Flock of birds that fly in V formations may be doing so to conserve energy. Birds drafting off of each other’s flapping wings can make the journey easier and less exhausting.
Certain birds, such as starlings, for example, form acrobatic flocks that can turn on a dime to create shapes and undulating feats in the air. This flock behavior is meant to quickly deter their predator, the fast and furious falcon. Other birds, such as dunlins, may synchronize a subtle tilt to their bodies while in a flight flock as a way to camouflage their plumage to confuse predators.
Special Names for Flocks of Birds
When a flock consists of just one type of bird or closely related species of birds, specialized terms are often used to describe the group. The most colorful and creative flock names include:
Birds of Prey (hawks, falcons): cast, cauldron, kettle
Bobolinks: chain
Budgerigars: chatter
Buzzards: wake
Cardinals: college, conclave, radiance, Vatican
Catbirds: mewing
Chickadees: banditry
Chickens: peep
Cormorants: flight, gulp, sunning, swim
Coots: cover
Cowbirds: corral, herd
Cranes: herd, dance
Creepers: spiral
Crossbills: crookedness, warp
Crows: murder, congress, horde, muster, cauldron
Doves: bevy, cote, flight, dule
Ducks: raft, team, paddling, badling
Eagles: convocation, congregation, aerie
Emus: mob
Finches: charm, trembling
Flamingos: flamboyance, stand
Frigatebirds: fleet, flotilla
Game Birds (quail, grouse, ptarmigan): covey, pack, bevy
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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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Some birds can bite hard (Northern Cardinals), some can stab (Hairy Woodpeckers), while others can make intimidating noises, But most can’t do any serious damage to a human. Birds do not carry rabies, and are generally at higher risk of catching something from us than vice versa. Wash your hands after handling a bird as a precautionary measure.
But:birds of prey, herons, loons and other birds with strong talons or spear-like beaks can cause serious injury if you do not wear protective gear and take necessary precautions. Please read to the end for specific handling instructions, and do not attempt a rescue if you are not certain you can do so safely.
Two-handed grip for medium-sized birds
Secure the wings by wrapping both your hands around the bird, thumbs on its back, pointing up. Be sure to hold it securely, but be careful not to put pressure on the chest. The bird will instinctively want a place to rest its feet, so let it grab onto your little fingers.
Two-handed grip for small birds
Gently enclose the bird within your hands, leaving room between your fingers to allow the bird to breathe — but not too much room or it will wriggle out.
One-handed grip for small birds
This is similar to the bander’s grip commonly used to stabilize birds for banding (ringing), or to inspect for injuries. Hold the bird’s neck between your index and middle finger while using your thumb and ring finger to secure the wings. Your little finger acts as a perch for the bird’s feet, or you can use your other hand to support the bird from below. If you are not experienced with the bander’s grip, it may be safer to use both hands.
Using a net
A fine-mesh net is often the easiest and safest way to catch a bird. Our volunteers use dollar-store butterfly nets for smaller birds (stick with blue or green nets, avoid red, orange, pink). Nylon fishing nets with large holes are not suitable, as they will not hold a small bird, and risk injuring a larger birds or damaging its feathers.
Gently cover the bird with the net, being careful not to crush the bird’s head, wings or legs with the loop. Hold the net flat against the ground and place one hand over the bird from the outside of the net. Raise the net with that hand, still holding the bird inside the net, and use your other hand to gently extract the bird from the net. Make sure its toes, beak and wings don’t get caught in the netting.
Using a towel, blanket, sweater or jacket
This is usually the easiest way to capture larger birds. Just drop the towel or other piece of fabric over the bird from above, completely covering it. If you cannot cover the whole bird, make sure the head and the wings are covered. Now, just scoop it up in the towel using both hands to ensure that the wings are tucked in.
The towel technique is best for Mourning Doves, because they can shed their feathers to escape, leaving you with a handful of feathers but no bird.
Now what?
Once you have the bird in hand or in a towel or similar, transfer it to a box or, for smaller birds, a plain paper bag, and close the top so the bird cannot escape. The bird may try to fly away even if it badly injured, so please don’t let it. A paper bag does not require air holes, although a box might if it’s airtight.
If you picked up the bird in a towel or similar, make sure its head is uncovered once it’s safely in the box. To do this, or if you need to transfer the bird to another container, please find a small, windowless, enclosed space (e.g. bathroom) so the bird can’t get far if it escapes.
Keep the bird in a dark and quiet place indoors, and do not attempt to give it food or water. Call Safe Wings or another rehabber for further instructions.
Special precautions
Many people worry that birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, falcons and eagles, will bite them. While there’s a very small chance they will, and it can hurt, the real danger lies elsewhere. Raptors have incredibly powerful talons (claws) that they use to grip and kill their prey — and to defend themselves. Do not attempt to handle these birds without thick leather gloves and a thick towel or blanket to protect you from the talons.
Pigeon in New York City (file / credit: STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
Never attempt to handle a heron, loon or other bird with a long, spear-like beak without wearing eye protection. They will defend themselves by stabbing at your eyes, which can result in fatal injury. Wearing leather gloves and covering the bird with a thick, large towel or blanket to pick it up will further protect both of you from injury.
In many cases, a sick or injured bird will be too weak to struggle or defend itself. However, a bird in distress may lash out in panic. Please do not attempt to capture a potentially dangerous bird unless you understand and are willing to accept the risks.
Other tips for capturing birds
Move calmly but deliberately
Crouch if possible
Approach from behind, but be mindful not to chase birds towards buildings. (Exception: American Woodcocks should be approached from the front.)
Act quickly. With the exception of young birds that are learning to fly, almost any wild bird that can be approached needs help.
Do not wait to see if the bird will fly away. Even badly hurt birds will try to get away if they are in a vulnerable position. Just because they can still fly does not mean they don’t have severe internal injuries.
Do not mistake helplessness for friendliness. Wild birds are naturally afraid of us (with the exception of young birds that have not yet learned to fear us), so if they appear docile, it’s usually because they have head trauma or another severe injury.
Stress from excessive handling and noise can kill a bird. Please do not pet an injured bird, sing to it, let your children play with it, or let your dog sniff it. Just get it to a rehabber as quickly and as quietly as possible.
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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
Pigeon/Pigeon Patrol / Pigeons Roosting / Vancouver Pigeon Control /Bird Spikes / Bird Control / Bird Deterrent / Pigeon Deterrent? Surrey Pigeon Control / Pest /Seagull deterrent / Vancouver Pigeon Blog / Birds Inside Home / Pigeons in the cities / Ice Pigeons/ What to do about pigeons/ sparrows , Damage by Sparrows, How To Keep Raccoons Away, Why Are Raccoons Considered Pests/ De-fence / Pigeon Nesting/ Bird Droppings / Pigeon Dropping/ woodpecker control/ Professional Bird Control Company/ Keep The Birds Away/ Birds/rats/ seagull/pigeon/woodpecker/ dove/sparrow/pidgeon control/pidgeon problem/ pidgeon control/flying rats/ pigeon Problems/ bird netting/bird gel/bird spray/bird nails/ bird guard
Pigeons—you either love them or hate them. I personally think they are super cute. Have you ever watched a pigeon walking down the street? They look like they’re wearing little knickers. It’s adorable!
What to Do With an Injured Pigeon
The next time you come across an injured pigeon, please think twice about helping it. Before you intervene, you must make sure that your help is really necessary. If it becomes clear that you are the pigeon’s only hope, here are some steps you can take to make sure your response doesn’t make the situation worse:
Pick up the bird and place it in a box or cage. A cage made for guinea pigs works well.
Place the cage in a warm, dark area to calm the bird, which is probably very scared and in pain.
Prepare an electrolyte solution: Warm a cup of water, add a pinch of salt and sugar, and stir to dissolve. When the water is lukewarm, pour it into a deep cup, and offer it to the bird. Pigeons drink water by sucking, using their beaks as a straw.
Don’t try to feed it at this time. It needs to be rehydrated first.
If you have a warming pad, place it in the cage or box. Place an old towel over the warming pad and set it on low.
Check the pigeon for obvious signs of injury: drooping wing, blood, visible cuts.
If the bird is drinking and seems to be doing okay, you can provide seeds if you have them. Wild bird seed is fine in a pinch. Pigeons love safflower seeds and unpopped popcorn. They can also be fed the smaller millet seed, a basic component in wild bird food.
If the bird is not eating, he will need immediate help. Pigeons have a high metabolism and need to eat often.
The Humane Society recommends contacting the closest licensed wildlife rehabilitation center in your area.
Common Pigeon Injuries
A Pigeon With a Broken Wing
A pigeon with a broken wing is usually unable to fly. Sometimes the wing is drooping or dragging. Occasionally there is blood or protruding bone.
Maybe the pigeon was clipped by a car, had a close encounter with a cat, or high winds threw it against the side of a building. In some cases, a veterinarian can repair the wing, but oftentimes the pigeon will be handicapped for life.
A Pigeon With a Pellet Gun Wound
With this type of wound, you would notice a hole in the pigeon. This wound should be examined for possible infection by a vet. The bird will probably also need antibiotics.
A Pigeon With a Broken Foot
You’ll often see pigeons with mangled feet. They often get tangled in fishing wire or other loose string. This is very dangerous for the pigeon because it can cut circulation to the foot and cause infection.
How to Help Sick or Wounded Pigeons
Visit The Pigeon Forum to post about your bird. The people on this forum are helpful and can assist you in finding a vet and getting medicine or connect you with a rehabber in your area who can walk you through saving the bird’s life.
Get in touch with Palomacy Pigeon & Dove Adoptions, an organization that rehabilitates and re-homes injured pigeons, to ask for help.
Do Pigeons Carry Diseases, and Will They Make Me Sick?
Unfortunately, pigeons fall victim to many misconceptions and misinformation. Many believe, for instance, that pigeons carry diseases that are communicable to humans. This is simply untrue according to Nicole Benson, an animal advocate who has rescued dozens of pigeons and has never come down with a disease.
“These misconceptions are put out there by pest control companies who want your business,” she says. “While there are a few diseases that a pigeon may carry (such as salmonella), it is far more likely that we will infect a pigeon with one of the diseases that we carry.”
What Should You Do If You Find a Baby Pigeon?
Tending a baby bird is not an easy task. Like any newborn, a baby pigeon will need a lot of help. Don’t immediately pick up the bird and assume that you can figure out what to do. It’s best for the bird if you enlist the help of experts. In this situation, the Humane Society recommends contacting the closest licensed wildlife rehabilitation center. If you find a baby bird outside its nest, read What to Do If You Find a Baby Bird—Helping Wildlife for more information.
What If the Pigeon Dies?
Don’t be discouraged if you take a pigeon into your care, but you’re unable to save the bird’s life. Not all pigeons can be saved. You did your best by providing the pigeon with a safe, warm place.
Why Are There Suddenly So Many Pigeons?
If you are flummoxed by an increase in pigeons around your home, don’t take drastic measures like hiring an exterminator or using a pellet gun. The birds’ sudden arrival is most likely the result of an increase in food. Once the source of food is eliminated, the pigeons will leave. One solution for keeping pigeons at bay involves putting a reflective material that will move with the breeze on your roof. The motion and reflection will discourage the birds from landing.
Should I Glue Cowboy Hats to Pigeons’ Heads?
The internet is enamored by a video meme featuring pigeons in cowboy hats. The ruggedly handsome birds first showed up on the mean streets of Las Vegas during National Finals Rodeo. It may sound like a funny visual, but it’s also a cruel prank. Pigeon advocate Mariah Hillman told Audubon magazine the hats were inhumanely glued to the pigeons’ heads. The hats also likely impaired the birds’ 340-degree field of view, making it difficult to navigate their surroundings and fly.
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 Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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