by Pigeon Patrol | Jan 25, 2022 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
A freewheeling flock of birds is one of nature’s most endearing spectacles. The flock’s members move with uncanny coordination, changing direction in unison, splitting and reforming, and even landing as one. The intricacies of these synchronised flights are very difficult to entangle. Who is following whom? Is there even a leader and, if so, does the same bird always take up pole position? Our feeble eyes could never hope to discern the answers just by watching a flying flock. But fortunately, we have technology that can do the job for us.
, Budapest, has found that flying pigeons obey strict chains of command, even when in flight. He used state-of-the-art GPS devices to track the movements of groups of ten pigeons with exquisite sensitivity. The lightweight monitors, just 16g in weight, captured the subtleties of the pigeons’ twists and turns in mere fractions of a second. Back on the ground, Nagy analysed their recordings to show that pigeons fly according to the pecking orders they establish on the ground. The dominant bird takes the lead and the others follow his directions. Studying the collective movements of animal groups has been a difficult challenge. Many cameras can be used to film animals moving within the same block of space, but the jostling bodies often block one another from view. Mathematical models can tell us about the basic rules that groups of moving animals adhere to, but they are difficult to test in real life. But our technology has now become advanced enough to start skirting around these problems. For scientists studying birds, the key breakthrough was the creation of sensors that are light enough to be strapped to a flying bird without compromising its aerial abilities. Now, these sensors include GPS devices that can record a bird’s speed and direction every fifth of a second. Nagy attached such devices to 13 homing pigeons and watched as they flew in flocks of 7 to 11 birds.
Nagy catalogued every instance when one pigeon changed direction only to be followed by another. By pooling together this data, he created a network of leaders and followers, showing the relationship of each bird to its peers. This colourful diagram shows one such network. Each circle represents an individual pigeon, the arrows point from a leading bird to one that follows it, and the numbers represent the time delay between the leader’s movements and those of its follower’s. The networks showed that flocking pigeons maintain a dependable hierarchy on the wing. On average, when a leading bird changed direction, its followers would follow suit after around a third of a second. Birds will consistently copy the movements of specific individuals further up the pecking order and, in turn, they are consistently copied by more junior underlings. What makes a leading pigeon? It seems that skill counts for something. Nagy released each of his birds on a solo flight, some distance from home. When they returned, he found that those who arrived home quickest were also most likely to wield leadership authority, although this link between navigation ability and seniority wasn’t quite statistically significant. Indeed, the chains of seniority within pigeon flocks are fairly flexible, changing dynamically from flight to flight. Influential birds tend to remain influential but Tamas Vicsek, who led the study, says, “There are days when the pigeon which takes the role most of the time is less active. Perhaps it did not have a good sleep! During these days some of the birds on lower levels of the hierarchy have their chance to lead.” Nagy’s data also revealed that leaders do indeed take up pole position at the front of the flock. That may seem intuitively obvious to us, but remember that pigeons have a field of vision that extends for almost a full 360 degrees. When you can easily see individuals flying behind you, the leading bird doesn’t necessarily need to be at the front, and yet it does. More surprisingly, leaders also tend to stay on the left of the flock. Nagy found that the more time that a bird spent behind a leading partner, the more likely it was to be flying on that partner’s right. There’s an obvious reason for this – like us, pigeons have highly asymmetric brains with each half wielding greater influence over certain thought processes. Their right brain, which receives signals from the left eye, controls the ability to recognise other pigeons. So if a pigeon sees one of its peers through its left eye, rather than its right, it responds more quickly or more strongly.
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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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by Pigeon Patrol | Dec 16, 2021 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons
How does a lone pigeon get back home? Does it choose the fastest, the easiest or the safest route?
As flying takes a lot of energy, birds generally adapt their flight speed and trajectory to reduce how much they use.
Now researchers at Swansea University have been using high-tech tags to study homing pigeons and to discover if these crucial decisions could be linked to helping them avoid attack by predators.
When the team monitored pigeons as they flew back to their loft at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany, they observed that the birds did sometimes adopt energy-efficient flight styles such as starting their climbs ahead of hills to reduce their climb angle. But they also saw pigeons using up energy by flying at high speeds.
Baptiste Garde, of the University’s Swansea Lab for Animal Movement (SLAM) led the new research which has just been published by the journal Royal Society Open Science
He said: “This might suggest that pigeons are just trying to get home as fast a possible, but by comparing the variation in their flight speed and altitude to those of an ultralight aircraft following the same path, we found that pigeon altitude and speed was, in fact, very variable.
“Flying this way is neither efficient in terms of time nor energy, but it might have an unexpected advantage. Indeed, if we look at the trajectory of a rabbit on the run, or a snipe flying away, we can see that they make unpredictable sharp turns to confuse their predators.
“That is what we call a protean behaviour. Pigeons might be using the same strategy to increase their chances of avoiding an attack.
“Protean flight has only been described in a handful of birds up until now but we think that it might be a relatively common behaviour, with birds flying in a more unpredictable way when they fly solo.”
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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
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 30, 2021 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News
Pigeons predominantly feed on grains and cereals, thus they can consume quickly any grainy foods lift in the open. Aside from grains and cereals, Pigeons are known to feed on small insects as well as earthworms . Pigeons can feed on small Kentucky rats , lizards and many other reptiles, they can also carry these small animals in their claws or feet through hundreds of miles during flights until they reach their destination and without losing grip of such animals.
The question of feeding pigeon or not will largely depends on whether the bird is domesticated or not. While domesticated Louisville pigeons can be fed at a restricted area of a property, free-roaming pigeons must never be fed. Domesticated pigeons must only be fed if they are very few (between 1 and 5), however, feeding domesticated Kentucky pigeons may attract the attention of other pigeons , thus the population of pigeons around your property may soar within a short period of time.
Feeding of Louisville pigeons are widely discourage because of the possibility of such birds causing damages to different compartments of a property during flight. When you feed pigeons, they will end up defecating on your roof, similarly, they will end up roosting and building nests close to you property because they have a ready source of food. Feeding Kentucky pigeons around your property also means that they will eventually gain access to other places such as the patio, deck, and garage.
When you feed pigeons close to your Louisville property, they will get used to migrating there in search of food, and when you are not around, they may decide to fly through your door or window. Feeding pigeons within your Kentucky property will increase the chances of the birds gaining access to the attic or the chimney at the top , where they can easily roost and establish their nests. Even when your pigeons are domesticated, you must only feed them in their cages and not outside of their abode, this will reduce their chances of accessing your roof, since they are used to eating in their bowls or troughs , inside their cages.
Feeding Kentucky pigeons is discouraged in every way because of the enormous damages they tend to cause in and outside of properties. The birds are aggressive in nature, and their droppings can get too much to the extent of making roofs to cave in. Pigeon damages reduce the value of homes and can cause thousands of dollars in damages.
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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
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 23, 2021 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News
That flock of pigeons flying overhead may look like a chaotic cloud of birds, but it’s more like an airborne hierarchy. By strapping tiny global positioning system (GPS) backpacks onto the birds, researchers have found that a flock follows several leaders at any given time in flight. But the flock’s leadership can change so that even low-ranking birds sometimes get a chance to command. The findings could shed light on how other groups of animals behave en masse, such as herds of wildebeest, schools of fish, and even crowds of humans.
Flocks of birds are one of the most common sights in everyday life, but many aspects of the animals’ behavior remain poorly understood. Why, for example, do flocks suddenly change directions and then change directions again within a few seconds? Why do birds in flight suddenly stop to rest on a certain stretch of telephone wire? And lacking any threat or sudden disturbance, why do flocks on the ground spontaneously take to the air?
To find some of the answers, researchers exploited a bit of 21st century technology. A team lead by statistical physicist Tamás Vicsek of Eötvös University in Hungary outfitted a trained flock of 13 homing pigeons with tiny GPS receivers that could determine each individual bird’s position every 0.2 seconds. Then they sent as many as 10 members of the flock out on 15 test flights. The journeys included four flights of about 15 kilometers back to the birds’ roost and 11 flights roaming freely around their home base outside Budapest. The researchers tracked each bird’s directional changes and how often those changes either followed or were copied by its flockmates.
In today’s issue of Nature, the team reports that the flight patterns showed a definite hierarchy, with most or all of the birds consistently copying changes in direction by the flock’s leaders, which almost always flew in front. If, for example, a leading bird suddenly swerved to the right, its followers copied its move within about 0.4 seconds—an amount of time considered too long to be reflexive.
However, the data also revealed that the leaders weren’t always the same, even within a single flight. And sometimes, even the birds at the bottom of the pecking order would lead the flock for brief periods. The arrangement made each flight more egalitarian, but the researchers think the reason might be more evolutionarily than politically driven. It’s possible that this type of group decision-making is more accurate or beneficial than others, says zoologist and co-author Dora Biro of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Perhaps the individuals in the flocks stand a better chance of survival if they sometimes participate in guiding the group rather than constantly submitting to a single leader, she says.
Another curiosity was that the lower-ranking birds most often flew behind and to the right of the leaders. The researchers think this relates to the structure of the birds’ brains, in which the left side handles spatial tasks and the right side governs social recognition. Therefore, anything the birds see with their left eye (which is processed by the right side of the brain) tends to yield a quicker social response.
“The degree of coordination that flocks achieve is really impressive,” Biro says. “We identified a clear hierarchical structure within the decision-making process.” She says the team next plans to study flock members in greater depth, including their genders, ages, navigational experiences, to determine “what airborne leaders are made of.”
The findings could help explain group behavior of other animals, such as schooling fish, says evolutionary biologist Iain Couzin of Princeton University. There’s a “fascinating balance” between democratic and hierarchical control in the pigeon flocks, he says. And this sophisticated study reveals the link between the birds’ brain hemispheres and how they gather information during their flights. It achieves “a deeper understanding of coordinated control in animal groups,” he says.
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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
by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 16, 2021 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Most studies on factors influencing density of the feral pigeons Columba livia var. domestica were carried out in large cities and agglomerations. However, also in small towns, pigeons are important epidemiological and sanitary problem. In our studies, feral pigeons were censused in 33 towns located in the Pomeranian Province (northern Poland) during 2006–2008. These birds occurred in 19 (57.6%) towns. The number of pigeons was positively correlated with the area of the town, and it was significantly higher in towns localized in agricultural landscape than in towns surrounded by forests. We also found a significant effect of interactions between type of a landscape surrounding a town and residual number of inhabitants on the abundance of pigeons. In the largest towns of the Pomeranian Province, feral pigeons were concentrated mainly in central quarters. In smaller towns, they were noted in central parts or in areas with blocks of flats and even the suburbs. The obtained results suggest that food conditions in small and middle towns may be not sufficient for colonization by pigeons.
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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
by Pigeon Patrol | Oct 20, 2021 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons, Sparrows, UltraSonic Bird Control
Pigeons are domesticated rock doves, a species of bird that lives mostly in the Mediterranean area. The weather there stays fairly mild through the whole year, so there’s no need to limit breeding to just one season. Being able to breed year-round is a big evolutionary advantage if the habitat can support it, and that’s probably why pigeons are so successful.
But that’s not true for all birds. Most climates are not so hospitable through the seasons, and most birds are dependent on seasonal food sources like insects and seeds. There are also many species that migrate, and they can’t exactly carry their eggs with them. (Rock doves and pigeons are not migrators, so that’s not a problem for them.) They have to get all their baby-making done during the brief period of time when there are enough resources to raise the chicks. Even rock doves prefer to breed during the spring and summer when food is most plentiful.
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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
