Pigeon & Bird
Control Products
In January, Broadsheet reported on one of Melbourne’s most inspiring residents – the indomitable Parkdale pigeon.
Since at least October 2016 the pigeon has defied the efforts of Public Transport Victoria cleaners to remove its nest on top of an LCD screen at Parkdale Station.
The pig-headed bird has returned time and again to rebuild following the ruthless destruction of its nest, and has now given birth to two new baby chicks.
Pigeons usually stay with the same partner for life, and the randy little critters have been known to give birth up to six times a year, so it’s hard to say how many chicks have been raised at the Parkdale Station nest.
Some call them grey sky demons, but to others they’re a symbol of endurance and perseverance. Keep doing your thing, Parkdale Pigeon. Stick it to the man with your pile of sticks.
See the dedicated work of pigeon correspondent Michael Bell below.
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)
LAS VEGAS (KTNV) – A serious pigeon problem is popping up in at least one Las Vegas neighborhood forcing a family to declare an all-out war.
Sandy Love said the problem began a few years ago but now the pigeon population has ballooned in her neighborhood near Ann Road and U.S. 95.
“Just the pigeons, it’s crazy,” said Love.
“I mean, they are out of control now,” she added.
Love and her neighbors suspect someone is feeding the flying vermin nearby causing them to roost and poop — everywhere.
“This is my pigeon stick and it’s to get rid of all of the pigeons under my solar panels,” explained Love while holding a stick made of bamboo.
Love says aside from from the pigeon poop and feathers, she’s worried about her mother Liz Watson, 84, who suffers from Lupus.
“I do not have an immune system,” explained Liz Watson.
“I have SLE lupus and I’ve had it for 30 years so I have to be super careful,” added Watson.
The Southern Nevada Health District said pigeons can pose a danger to people.
A well-fed pigeon can produce up to 25 pounds of poop every year, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.
The city of Las Vegas introduced an ordinance against feeding pigeonsearlier this month, however a formal vote to enact the ordinance may not take place until October.
A Las Vegas spokesperson said if passed, it would bring the city of Las Vegas in line with similar ordinances on the books in Clark County and Henderson.
In the meantime, Love says she has fortified her home using pigeon spikes, gorilla glue, and a decoy owl.
Authorities recommend consulting with a pest control specialist to tackle additional pigeon problems.
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)
While the media in Mexico are forever filled with chatter about futbol and béisbol, there is another sport dear to the heart of many Mexicans which rarely ever makes the news.
I’m talking about pigeon racing, which has been practiced as organized competition in this country since 1936. Nowadays this sport is most popular in Jalisco and Michoacán. The city of Guadalajara, for example, is home to some 1,100 pigeon fanciers, who put up to 45,000 birds into competition every year.
In Spanish, raising and racing pigeons is called colombofilia, which comes from the Latin word columba, which means dove or pigeon in English and paloma in Spanish. Pigeon fanciers say it is both an art and a sport, because it involves raising and caring for the bird, protecting it from sickness and training it to be a deportista (sports competitor).
In Greater Guadalajara there are approximately 25 clubs and every year they hold two big events: one competition for birds over a year old and another for yearlings, young birds, which are called pichones in Spanish.
Whoever wants to compete must register with a club which sends a representative to your house to take the exact GPS coordinates of your pigeon loft. Then, those of your birds that will compete are fitted with a band containing a radio-frequency identification chip which is registered in a very sophisticated electronic timing scanner which you must purchase.
Let’s say the competition is for yearlings who must fly from Zacatecas to Guadalajara, a distance of about 300 kilometers. Typically, some 25,000 birds may be registered for this. All these birds are driven to Zacatecas in specially modified trucks and are simultaneously released in some remote spot early in the morning.
Back in Guadalajara, the pigeon owner anxiously waits for his or her bird to arrive. When it does, the chip is recognized by the electronic scanner and the exact time of arrival is registered.
Next, the scanner must be carried to the club and its information transferred to the club’s computer. The computer then divides the exact distance flown by your bird by the amount of time it was flying and determines, on average, how many meters per minute the bird flew.
These calculations are important because the lofts at which these birds are arriving are scattered all around metropolitan Guadalajara, so the distance each flew from Zacatecas is slightly different. One bird’s average speed may differ from another’s by a fraction of a second.
I learned all this from Juan Jorge Padilla, a Guadalajara-based veterinarian who specializes in pigeons and doves. “How did you get interested in these birds?” I asked him.
“I was five years old,” Dr. Padilla told me, “and lived next door to a neighbor who raised pigeons. Well, they grabbed my attention because — unlike chickens — they could fly and they always came back. So my father bought a pair of pigeons from our neighbor and I started caring for them.”
“How do you train a pigeon to become a deportista?” I asked.
“Well, first you must understand that these pigeons are twice as big as ordinary ones. It’s like comparing a thoroughbred horse with one that pulls a hay wagon. For training them, you start off by letting your pigeon fly around at home so it gets to know its own rooftop. Then, when it’s three or four months old and used to being on its own for at least an hour, you take it on trips five kilometers away, to the north, south, east and west, so it begins to develop its sense of orientation. You let it loose and it starts to fly and it comes back to its loft.”
“What if a hawk spots it?”
“Yes, this happens — or they are shot by a hunter and they come back missing feathers, or a tail, or they don’t come back at all. Some of mine have returned wounded and you can tell what happened to them. An injury from a BB gun and a wound from a hawk’s claw are very different. But you stitch them up, you heal them, and they survive.”
I asked Padilla how far homing pigeons have been known to fly and he told me a story related in The Book of the Racing Pigeon by Carl Naether. It seems that in February of 1930 a blue-blooded racing pigeon bred at Elmont, Long Island, in the United States was sold for breeding purposes to a mining engineer in Caracas, Venezuela.
In May of that year, Miss 1303, which was her name, escaped from the engineer and in August 1931 she was found in her old loft, in fine condition, even though she had flown more than 3,000 miles from South America to Long Island.
The story of Miss 1303, however, pales in comparison with a report by John Frazier Vance, writing in Scientific American. In his article What Brings Them Home? Vance says that an experiment was carried out on August 15, 1931 at Arras, France, to see if a homing pigeon could find his way back to Saigon, Indo-China, 7,200 miles away.
The bird, which is unnamed, is said to have arrived at his home loft on September 9, only 24 days after takeoff.
The more I heard about raising homing pigeons, the more I came to understand that la colombofilia is a rather expensive hobby. However, Juan Jorge Padilla told me the first prize for a competition in Guadalajara might be a mere 5,000 pesos, with 4,000 to 1,000 pesos going to the following four winners.
“You can definitely make more money raising canaries,” he told me, “but your emotional connection with the canary will never be anything like what you feel for una paloma. The pigeon you can hold, you can caress; you witness the birth of its babies, you suffer if it comes home hurt.
“We say this bird is tame, but the moment it’s on its own it must become wild, it must find its food and water; it must ride out storms, navigate in fog; it must avoid cats, possums, mountains and dangerous air currents. It must survive.”
“It can fly up to 120 kilometers per hour with a favorable wind,” Padilla continued. “but a hawk could catch up with it if the pigeon is tired. Then, at the last moment, the bird must have nerves of steel and execute a ‘barrel roll’ like those performed by fighter pilots to escape those sharp talons.
“That’s why you don’t really care if your pigeon wins, but what satisfaction you feel when it suddenly appears on your roof after a flight of hundreds of kilometers! You raised that bird from a little hatchling, as if you had personally trained a marathon champion from babyhood on.
“This satisfaction, seeing it arrive, maybe seeing it win, simply has no price! It is unique and it holds a special place in your heart and in your soul.”
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)
Laksi district officials on Thursday sanitised the house of an old woman who for decades had been feeding a large flock of wild pigeons and ignoring neighbours’ complaints about the mess they caused and the risk of disease. “Auntie Pigeon”, as she is known in the area, was also warned to stop doing it or face fines or even imprisonment. Laksi district chief Khajeerat Jaynakhom led a team to clean up the bird droppings and left over food that begrimed the two-story terrace house and its surroundings on Kosum Ruamjai road after a neighbour finally made an official complaint. They also disinfected the area. Mrs Khajeerat told 70-year-old Dueanchai Pengpreecha to stop feeding the birds because she was in violation of public health and cleanliness laws. She would be liable to a fine of up to 25,000 baht or even a jail term of up to three months if she persisted. The law prohibited people from feeding animals in public places in a way that would trouble neighbours, the district chief said. Ms Dueanchai agreed to cease and desist. The district chief had her signed a written promise to do so. “Auntie Pigeon” said she loved animals and had fed dogs and pigeons at her house for decades. She had not known that she was breaking the law. The number of visiting pigeons had soared dramatically in the past few years and she had to increase the amount of feed she provided, and scatter it on both the ground and upper levels of her house, she 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)
A pair of falcons perched high above the Melbourne CBD skyline have gotten birdwatchers excited for an impending hatch after laying four fresh eggs – with the action all happening via webcam.
Viewers tuning into the livestream have been given renewed hope after the webcam was taken down last year after two chicks were witnessed dying after a suspected poisoning.
Watchers have been sitting nervously, keeping track of the falcons who are trying their best to incubate the eggs on top of the 33-storey 367 Collins St skyscraper.
Talking to ABC News, Birdlife Australia volunteer Dr Victor Hurley discussed why he believes the dead chicks didn’t get past the point of infancy.
Mr Hurley said they’d had trouble with adult falcons catching pigeons who had ingested bird deterrent-type chemicals which have been known to be used to eradicate feral pigeons in the city.
‘The peregrines feed almost exclusively on other birds, so they see this pigeon lame and they pick it up and it’s covered in this fairly caustic gel which the peregrines then ingest themselves,’ he said.
Birdwatchers in Melbourne are ecstatic at the news of four eggs being laid by a peregrine falcon after two of its chicks tragically dying last year after feeding off a poisoned pigeon
The tragedy was made more potent after Dr Hurley claimed he had been told by Melbourne City Council that these chemicals were illegal in the city boundaries but peregrine falcons were known to hunt up to 10kilometres from the nest.
While it is currently unclear whether the two falcons seen on webcam are the same from last year, Dr Hurley says they look remarkably similar.
‘You’ve probably got a pair surviving at a site, on average, maybe three to four years, and then one of them dies and they get replaced, or another one comes in and kills the resident and takes over,’ Dr Hurley said.
The falcons have generated so much discussion that a dedicated Facebook page has been set up, named the 367 Collins Falcon Watchers.
It’s founder, Leigh Stillard, who started the page to support the work of the Victorian Peregrine Project, believes that the more people watch the footage and post images the more awareness and knowledge on how to treat this ‘remarkable creature’ can be told.
The falcon and its eggs can be watched on a live-stream from on top of 367 Collins Street in Melbourne’s CBD
‘We hope one day we will see many more bird of prey families living in the Melbourne CBD,’ he said.
According to Dr Hurley, if the falcons continue to incubate undistracted the recently laid eggs should hatch in around 30 days.
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)
