by Pigeon Patrol | Jan 31, 2020 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Spike, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, UltraSonic Bird Control
Pigeons are as integral to city living as traffic and pollution, and perhaps as annoying and potentially dangerous. These birds can cause property damage and carry diseases. However, there are humane ways to minimize or keep pigeons off your property. Find out how, together with some alleged solutions that simply don’t work or are not recommended.
The problems with pigeons
Pigeons often carry salmonella and other diseases. Their nests may harbor bird mites, bed bugs and other biting, disease-carrying insects. Because pigeon droppings are highly acidic, they can damage car paint and buildings. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, pigeon droppings often carry fungi or bacteria that cause the human diseases cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis and psittacosis. Exposure to these diseases happens primarily when cleaning up pigeon droppings.
Solutions that work
You may have noticed that pigeons are everywhere. To keep all pigeons off your property may be unrealistic. You can reduce nesting populations in your immediate area by inspecting your property for nests, and removing nests and eggs every two weeks. More importantly, focus on keeping pigeons out of buildings and other spaces.
- Wire mesh and wire: Screen all soffit vents and other potential entry points with rust-proof wire mesh. University of Florida professor William Kern also recommends suspending a thin wire or mono filament about two inches above a railing or other potential roost, or adding sticky substances, deterring pigeons from resting on the rails.
- Sheet metal: To keep pigeons off ledges and other flat potential roosts, cover them with a sloping piece of sheet metal. A slanted metal board doesn’t make much of a roost.
- Bird netting: Alternatively, use bird netting to seal off spaces above barn rafters and other potential roosts.
- Scare-pigeons: Try the pigeon equivalent of scarecrows. Among the most effective “scare-pigeons” are kites with hawk silhouettes and light Mylar streamers. Both move easily in the wind, scaring off birds. On the other hand, pigeons will quickly grow accustomed to a model owl that sits in one spot for a while.
- Spray pigeons with water: Kern even suggests spraying pigeons with a water hose, but notes that the birds must be sprayed upon arrival, before they start to establish a regular roosting spot. Once they have established a roost, your impromptu showers won’t keep them from going home.
- Pigeon traps: If you fail to exclude pigeons or prevent roosting, you may need to make a trap or buy a commercial trap. Be sure to check each trap at least once a day, and leave water in the trap, to attract more birds and minimize stress on any pigeons that get caught. Immediately release all other birds you were not aiming to catch.
- Humane pest control. Find a pest control expert who specializes in humane solutions to infestation by pigeons and other unwanted creatures.
Solutions that DON’T work
Not every alleged pigeon control works. Here are a few urban legends:
- Loud noises: Loud noises have been suggested for controlling birds, but they are likely to annoy neighbors more than pigeons. City birds are used to city noises, and don’t seem to startle easily.
- Cheap Ultrasonic noises: Ultrasonic noises that humans cannot hear may avoid bothering your neighbors, but Kern notes that some ultrasonic sound waves bounce off objects, creating spots where pigeons can avoid the sound. Also, some ultrasonic devices may damage the hearing of cats and dogs. Although some ultrasonic units has proven to keep pigeons off your property.
- Distress calls: There are no effective distress calls that can be used to target pigeons.
- Poison and chemical repellents: Pigeon poisons and chemical repellents are available, but they are strictly controlled for several reasons. They can kill or sicken other birds or animals, or even somebody’s prized racing pigeon. (Yes, there are pigeon racing clubs. If you trap a tagged pigeon, click here (for information on returning it.)
Full story here
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.
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 | Jan 31, 2020 | Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News
Feed a Pigeon, Breed a Flying RAT
Q: I’ve often heard that it is illegal to feed pigeons in New York, yet I see people doing it all the time. Is there really such a law? And if so, why isn’t it enforced?
A: Despite a common public perception, there is no law that makes pigeon feeding illegal everywhere in the city. That said, the Parks Department posts notices prohibiting feeding in many areas under its control. If you ignore the sign, you may get an Environmental Control Board summons from the parks enforcement patrols or from the Police Department. The usual penalty is the minimum of $50, which you can mail in. You can fight it in court, but you can be fined $100 if you are found guilty.
Even where pigeon feeding is not prohibited, both the Parks and Health Departments discourage the practice, citing litter and rodent problems. A Health Department poster warns: “Feed a Pigeon, Breed a Flying Rat.”
This attitude irks Anna Dove, founder and director of the New York Bird Club. “There is never any left-over feed from people feeding pigeons and other wildlife in the city, so littering is a poor excuse against pigeon feeding,” said Ms. Dove. (Yes, that’s her name; she had it legally changed from Augusta Kugelmas when she founded the club about three years ago.)
“After I feed,” she added, “most of the time I remain in the area to make sure the feed is not swept away by building maintenance people. Every morsel is eaten.”
Source: NY Times
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.
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 | Jan 31, 2020 | Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeons in the News
WIMBLEDON, England, July 6 It’s clear skies Thanks to Wayne Davis and his fine-feathered friends, raindrops are the only thing that Wimbledon fans have to worry about dropping from the sky and into their bowls of strawberries and cream.
The All England Club would seem a wonderful place to be a pigeon. There are nooks, crannies and overhangs. There are trees and grass. And, for two weeks out of the year, there is litter and food and people to hassle, which seems to be what pigeons do best.
But there are no pigeons here, save the occasional wayward straggler who, apparently, has only recently arrived from out of town.
Davis stood on the grass-covered terrace atop the Broadcast Center, several stories high, about even with the top of Center Court. From there you could see the tennis courts below, the leafy suburbs that surround them, and downtown London in the distance.
And, above, was one of his Peregrine falcons, circling the sky, issuing a silent warning that being a pigeon and being here is not a good idea.
Davis swung a rope like a lasso. At its end was a meaty piece of quail attached to a leather lure. The falcon, this one named Callisto, dived toward the food and swooped past, like a bull to a matador. After a few passes, Davis dropped the decoy to his feet, and the brown falcon with a speckled chest came down to earth and feasted.
“I’ve been doing this 25 years,” said Davis, smiling at the spectacle of the bird’s flight. “I still think that was brilliant. I enjoyed that.”
Wimbledon began its championship in 1877, and for most of the years since, pigeons have been among those who flocked to watch and socialize. They would eat the grass seed in the spring and nest under the Center Court roof. Every year, workers would try to remove the nests before the tournament. Still, the pigeons would flutter about the courts, and, well, bomb the fans with unpleasant surprises.
“In the old, old days, they probably used to shoot them,” the Wimbledon spokesman Johnny Perkins said of the pigeons in London and at the tennis club. “But in these touchy feely times, they probably decided that wasn’t the best option. This seems to be the best compromise, really.”
Helping Wimbledon limit its spectators to ticket-holding humans was the idea of Davis’s wife. She was watching the tournament on television a few years ago, and saw players shooing pigeons with rackets. So Davis called the All England Club and offered a demonstration of his services. The club liked what it saw, and Davis was hired beginning in 1999.
Davis owns a company called Avian Control Systems. With his small flock of hawks, falcons and owls, he shoos other birds using little more than fright tactics. Lesser birds see his birds soaring around, and they find somewhere else to go.
“Falconer,” Davis said, chewing on a suggestion for his job title. “I like that. I get called bird man, but falconer is nice, isn’t it?”
Davis does much of his work at airports and military airfields, where geese, gulls and other unsuspecting birds can pose safety risks if they find their way into jet engines.
Other clients see birds as a nuisance, not a danger. Davis has contracts with Westminster Abbey and Canary Wharf, a glass-and-steel business district along the Thames. Like the All England Club, they wanted a non-messy way to get rid of the mess-making birds, particularly the feral pigeon, the familiar gray ones common to so many cities.
“In the middle of the city, there are hundreds of thousands of pigeons all around,” Davis said. “All we can do is make it less comfortable for them.”
Pigeons, it seems, have memories that last at least a couple of days. At Wimbledon, Davis and his birds come a few times a week, throughout the year. That is enough to keep them from roosting in the rafters of the show courts “They’re like surrogate cliffs, really,” Davis said and from eating the grass seed when it is planted in the spring across nearly 40 courts.
“It’s analogous to cleaning,” he said. “You solve the problem with an intensive period, and keep it up with maintenance.”
At his country house in Northamptonshire, well north of London, Davis and his birds load into a van before dawn, so that they can do their work before the tennis crowds arrive.
On the roof, with its postcard view, Davis sent the falcon flying. A small bell was attached to its tail, and a radio transmitter to its ankle. It circled and swooped, then lifted like a rocket toward the gray clouds. There was not a pigeon in sight.
And down below, workers were preparing Wimbledon for another day. Somewhere, strawberries were being readied, and vats of cream sat in a cooler. Wimbledon cannot do much about the rain, but it is not fully ceding the skies.
Source from NY Times
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.
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 | Jan 30, 2020 | Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
Is Hutchinson facing growing pigeon problems? The experts agree: There are definitely more pigeons in Hutchinson these days.
And with the increased population comes growing pigeon problems related both to public health and property maintenance.
Pigeons plague the Reno County Courthouse, several churches and most of the downtown area.
Many people are resigned that pigeons are a natural addition to any tall building, but some Hutchinson business owners are taking a stand.
Last week, Advance Pest Control performed a “baiting” of pigeons in the downtown area.
Advance was hired by a coalition of business owners – who have remained anonymous to The Hutchinson News – who sought to reduce the pigeon population downtown because of health concerns and property damage.
In the baiting, toxic corn was strategically placed about the downtown area.
The birds who eat the bait eventually die but first display intoxicated behavior.
“Basically, this behavior is a stress signal to the other birds, which leave the area because they sense that something is not right,” said Jeff Wells, vice president of Advance. “So it results in a great reduction in population in a specific area because of the birds who take a toxic dose as well as the repellency issue.”
The baiting has resulted in a reduced population of pigeons downtown, but Wells said he has noticed that there are more birds roosting on nearby buildings that weren’t baited.
Health, property concerns
Pigeon droppings aren’t just a nuisance or an extra chore for property owners. Because they are acidic, they actually cause property damage, eating through metal and deteriorating signs and other metal objects at a rapid rate.
The biggest growing pigeon problems, though, comes in cleaning the droppings.
Pigeon fecal matter is a breeding ground for a spore called histoplasmosis, which can cause an infection that leads to respiratory disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The infection, if it affects other organs, can be fatal if untreated.
Workers cleaning up the droppings cause histoplasmosis spores to become airborne and are infected when they breathe them in.
Pigeons are also known to carry or transmit pigeon ornithosis, encephalitis, Newcastle disease, cryptococcosis, toxoplasmosis, salmonella food poisoning and several other diseases, according to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.
For that reason, the Kansas Department of Agriculture files the use of certain pigeon-control products under the category of public health and safety.
It’s a problem not lost on local businesses.
Next week, workers trained in safely removing pigeon waste will clean piles of pigeon droppings from the Fox Theatre marquee, which is being eroded by the waste, said board president Greg Payton.
Payton added that some theater employee illnesses have been blamed on the droppings.
Birds not protected
Pigeons are not protected by Kansas law, meaning property owners are free to dispose of them as they wish, Wells said.
But until the recent baiting, little has been done over the past seven years to control the pigeon population, which has led to the increase Hutchinson is seeing now, Wells said.
“The population has definitely increased,” Wells said. “There’s no question about that.”
In 2001, a baiting occurred, although it wasn’t performed by Advance, Wells said. A reduction in the pigeon population followed, but then the pigeon population was generally left alone except for some property owners putting up spikes or other roosting deterrents.
“These birds breed so quickly that the population explodes when nothing is done to limit them,” Wells aid.
Even some pigeon enthusiasts seem to understand the need for the population control.
“I don’t know the real solution,” said Mel Voth, a Garden City man who raises homing pigeons. “There are ways to divert them to other places, but I think a lot of folks feel like the baiting is the easiest way to reduce the population.”
Wells said there will always be a struggle between people who want pigeons eliminated and those who believe it’s wrong to kill them off, but he believes there can be a healthy compromise.
“Ultimately, we are trying to protect public health and safety, not eliminate a species of birds,” he said. “I place the safety of my kids above the population of pigeons. When the population reaches a certain point, it becomes an issue and something needs to be done.”
Source of the Story
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 issues 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.
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 | Jan 30, 2020 | Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News
The New Pigeon Wars. Rats with wings, or majestic streetwise bird? It’s a debate that’s raged almost as long as New York City has been called that. And this week, the war of pigeon between the two sides boiled over again.
A man feeds the pifeons in Times Square in 1949 (and was probably beaten a short time later.)
Pigeon wars started when the exclusive University Club had its feathers ruffled. It wanted to drape its storied building in netting, to protect it from pigeon poo, which eats away at stone and metal. But the Landmarks Commission said it would have to wait for approval, as it would be a “visible change” to the land marked Italian Renaissance building’s facade. As if the crap wasn’t a “visible change” enough.
Meanwhile, over on East 93rd Street, there was a scuffle involving longtime pigeon activist Anna Dove and her neighbor, who snatched away her bag of seed after he saw her feeding the pigeons on the sidewalk. The police were summoned.
“It’s disgusting,” said her nemesis, retired teacher Arthur Schwartz. “She’s feeding the rats.”
And with the live pigeon-shooting state championships in Pennsylvania coming up, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be an increase in demand of pigeon-poaching — New York City is a favorite spot for trapping them and transporting them to be used as live targets. The animal-rights activists will be out with their cameras and signs to stop them.
No matter which side you’re on, one things for certain — by the end, things are going to get a little birdbrained.
“It’s not the pigeons that are the problem, it’s the number of them,” says Andrew D. Blechman, author of “Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird.” “They’re gentle creatures. The problem is that they get in our face, just like we get in each other’s faces.”
No one one’s quite sure of how many pigeons are in New York City. One adage is “one pigeon per person,” which would put their numbers at about 7 million. They each produce about 25 pounds of waste per year.
Pigeons love cities because of the many ledges, windowsills, eaves and rooftops available for them to roost in, which mimics their natural habitat of high cliffs. Pigeon pairings are monogamous, often mating for life, and both parents raise the babies — called squab — for a time, sitting on the eggs in shifts.
The pigeon includes about 298 species of bird, but the Rock Dove is the most common to the New York area, according to the Parks Department. The grey, bobbing-headed birds usually have purple-green iridescence around the neck area. They’re the scruffiest members of the dove family — although “dove” usually connotes the pure white symbols of peace, not the pizza scavengers of city streets. (Just say they’ve been pigeonholed.)
“If they were white,” Blechman says, “people would love them.”
Blame the French for our pigeon problems. The little pluckers first arrived in the early 1600s with French settlers who used them for meat. They were easy to raise — they could be kept in a barn, where they’d perch on the rafters, and young pigeons served as a good source of protein.
But they soon escaped their confines and went feral.
City life agreed with them and allowed them to flourish — and in some cases, over-flourish. Their natural predators, like falcons and hawks, aren’t found here in great numbers.
Courtney Humphries, author of “Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan . . . And the World,” concedes that pigeon are pilloried partly because of their “persistence. They nest on the buildings we consider our territory, and they don’t like to be moved.”
The average city pigeon has a lifespan of three to five years. With all the food scattered throughout the garbage cans and sidewalks — plus well-meaning human feeders — they spend less time looking for grub, which leaves more time for mating.
“The biggest problem is the people who overfeed them,” says Blechman. “Every city has about a dozen of them, and they’re the ones who cause the [overpopulation] problem.”
He suggests that if you want to feed the birds, hand out just a teaspoon full of birdseed for a flock. “It’s just enough to give them a little extra energy while they’re out trying to find their own food.”
“If nobody fed pigeons, I think things would look a lot different,” agrees Humphries, who says that human feeders end up creating dense flocks. “A lot of the problem with pigeons comes from people.”
If you can’t freeze the hearts of little old ladies, though, you could try eating them (the pigeons, that is). Squab — baby pigeons that haven’t flown yet — is on the menu at many restaurants around the city, particularly French. They’re “basically the milk-fed veal of the sky,” says Blechman — tender, mostly dark meat, and one of the only poultry that can be eaten rare. (Pigeons produce their own milk-like substance, which they feed to their young by regurgitation.)
Pigeon pot pie was a huge colonial favorite. Today, try the Squab and Foie Croustillant at the Modern, Danny Meyer’s restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art.
*
Unless the appetite for squab skyrockets, New York’s options are few. Avicide — poisoning birds — was made illegal in 2000, when the state Legislature passed a bill outlawing the use of “flock dispersal agents” like Avitrol in cities with more than 1 million people.
Before that, property managers regularly hired pest control services to dole out Avatrol to flocks of pigeons.
“In theory, you would mix it with feed, and when one pigeon ate some of the treated food, they would begin to suffer from neurological toxicity,” explained Stephanie Boyles, wildlife expert at the Humane Society of the United States. “When their flockmates saw them suffering, it would prompt them to leave the area.”
In practice, however, overdosing often led to large numbers of birds convulsing and writhing in pain on the street before their deaths. Welcome to New York!
The last major flare-up of pigeon wars was in 2007, when City Councilman Simcha Felder released a report plaintively titled, “Curbing the Pigeon Conundrum.”
Claiming that their droppings carried a host of diseases like histoplasmosis, he proposed a $1,000 fine to anyone feeding them, as well as curbing their numbers through birth control (a measure that cities like Los Angeles have adopted, although some argue that it’s unsustainable), and appointing a city “Pigeon Czar” to oversee other pigeon-control issues.
The NYC Department of of Health and Mental Hygiene maintains that contact with their droppings only poses a small health risk, and that “routine cleaning of droppings (e.g. from windowsills) does not pose a serious health risk to most people,” although disposable gloves are a good idea.
The Humane Society came out against the anti-feeding fine because they weren’t sure it would actually make a difference in reducing flocks, said Boyles. “We still suggest working with communities to create places where pigeons are welcome, and discouraging them where they’re not.”
While Felder’s bill didn’t fly, it was only one of many efforts to keep pigeons clipped.
In 2006, pigeon loitering was so dense near the Army Recruitment Center in Times Square, speakers were set up to broadcast sounds of falcons and pigeons being attacked, in hopes of scaring them away. In 2003, they had so overwhelmed Bryant Park that the operators invited a falconer and his hawk to the park for a week to scare away (not eat) the pigeons.
In 2007, the MTA installed Bird-B-Gone on some of its elevated stations along the 7 line, as well as others. The electronic system zapped birds that got too close.
In the ’80s, plastic owls were a big seller. Today, a slightly more high-tech version, called the RoboHawk, moves its head, wings, and makes what its creators hope are pigeon-threatening sounds.
Every so often, a politician considers reviving an overall anti-feeding bill, since, for now, it’s only illegal in city parks where signs are posted (the fine is usually $50).
Some cling to the hope that the city will come to its senses and declare war. Because they’re a non-native species, pigeons are not protected by either the Federal Migratory Birds Act or New York state laws. Can anyone say hunting season?
It’s got to be done mafia-style, though. Culling is only a temporary solution — as with most wild birds, quick breeding will put their numbers back to pre-cull figures within weeks, according to Pigeon Control Advisory Service.
*
But spare a thought, pigeon haters, for your majestic foe. Pigeons have more qualities than you think.
Although city birds aren’t particularly active, pigeons are built to be athletes — a trained bird can fly up to 60 miles per hour, and they can stay in the air for 500 miles. They’re meant for flying long distances, and have “homing” instincts, which means they will naturally find their way back.
This talent is why they were literally drafted into the United States Army Pigeon Service.
A million served in both world wars, where they delivered messages across enemy lines and saved thousands of soldiers’ lives. One pigeon, Cher Ami, won a French medal for his bravery for flying through gunfire, finally delivering the message dangling from what was left of his foot. He’s now stuffed and in the Smithsonian.
The army’s Pigeon Breeding and Training Center was based at Fort Monmouth, NJ, and opened in 1917. Many of its “Pigeoneers” were “basically just boys out of Brooklyn, and they’d just bring their best birds,” Humphries says. (The training center was closed in 1957 when the Army stopped using them as messengers.)
Keeping pigeons on rooftops — and racing them — used to be much more popular. Who can forget Marlon Brando’s character in the 1954 film “On the Waterfront” shouting up to his friend Joey, “I got one of your birds!” right before Joey “accidentally” falls off the roof?
The city is full of equally vocal bird-lovers.
“They animate our lives,” argues Blechman, who says that despite writing a book on pigeons, he is not a “bird person,” and admits to having eaten them before. He’s come around, though. “You look out the window and you can have a pigeon land on your windowsill, and the same one will come back every day, and at the same time.
“What would the lonely, the unemployed, and the elderly do every day if it weren’t for pigeons?”
The Internet is atwitter with kooky pigeon fans. There’s a pigeon appreciation society on Facebook. On photo-sharing site Flickr, there’s a group called The Global Pigeon Art Appreciation Society.
“You are not alone,” the site reads. “Many artists have been inspired by pigeons.”
There is also a city listserv called “New York Pigeon People,” where members discuss how to rescue birds and share pigeon news.
You can eat them, race them, breed them, feed them, but you can’t escape them, whether you consider them the most misunderstood creatures of the flying community or the world’s worst bird. As Blechman put it, “We’re just going to have to learn to co-exist.”
The Source from NY Post
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 issues 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.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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