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Pigeons

mejane

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jan 17, 2002
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I was just wondering if anyone had noticed changes in their local pigeon population? I don't want to go into details yet... could be a purely local thing, and of course I could be imagining/exagerating it :rolleyes:

Anyone?

Jane.
 
Nope, Jane, Teesside pigeons appear to be all present and coo-rect!:p

Carole
 
Just as many sky rats as usual, have you discovered a way of eliminating them in a humane way.
 
No change noticed, but I ain't looked lately...what's occuring?

(apart from re-decorating my car with go-faster splats :) )
 
Well, the pigeons around here are now all pure white. The black & white "town" pigeons are nowhere to be seen. The brown "country" pigeons also seem to have gone. Very odd.

Jane.
 
mejane said:
Well, the pigeons around here are now all pure white. The black & white "town" pigeons are nowhere to be seen. The brown "country" pigeons also seem to have gone. Very odd.

Jane.

Where's 'around here'?

..not Sellafield, surely?:)
 
Actually, having now looked, there are a quite a lot of white ones around here - still lots of traditional grey ones too, though.

Wonder if there's some inter-species battle going on, a-la squirrels?
 
Come to think of it, you're in Oxford, aren't you Jane?

My wife did her nurse training at the John Radcliffe, and when I stayed there with her I noticed lots of what I assumed were doves in and around Headington and Iffley. Perhaps they were pigeons (not too hot on avian identification:) ) This is quite a long time ago, c. 1990.
 
Mostly normal around here, but I have seen at least one piebald one, with largish white patches.

These sky-rats are one of the banes of my life! There is a ledge right below my living room window here in Rynner Towers which is the pigeon equivalent of a luxury penthouse flat. I've strung netting across to keep them away, which has been succesful for the last couple of years, but this year some of them have found a way to get behind it.

I heard pigeons the other morning and flung the widow open, and there was a clattering of wings as two birds took flight, but one got caught up in the netting. It was out of my reach, but eventually disentangled itself. I just hope the fright keeps that pair from returning!

Or I could try singing at them - "Copa, Copa Caba-a-a-na..."!
 
There's been an influx of grey & black pigeons overnight here in sunny Oxfordshire. Maybe they heard me, or maybe I'm just going mad :confused:
Don't mind me, I'll just stand in the corner and sing quietly to myself.

Jane.
 
The pigeons that gather in the centre of Preston here mostly seem to be piebald, but they've been that way for at least the last decade or so. But has anyone ever seen a piebald blackbird? If not, twitchers are invited to descend on Preston's Moor Park to view one (although actually, it's only got a white head and neck).
 
There are no new "hangers on" around my wifes pigeons mejane, the only white one she has now is Gordon the Fantail, who turned up several years ago.

Other than Gordon,the only incomers, in recent years, out here in rural Bedfordshire, tend to be Collared Doves, of which we have a number of pairs hanging round the area, looking for hand outs & spillages of feed!!!!
 
David said:
Other than Gordon,the only incomers, in recent years, out here in rural Bedfordshire, tend to be Collared Doves, of which we have a number of pairs hanging round the area, looking for hand outs & spillages of feed!!!!

I was quite surprised when I found out that Collared Doves were not present in the UK before the 1950s- they've colonised amazingly fast.

On the subject of piebald birds- when I lived in Newcastle a few years ago, most blackbirds seemed to have some white patches- I wondered if it was of some survival advantage in an urban environment.
 
Animals that adapt to live unnaturally close to man ( including pets ) often seem to develop white patches , I have seen sparrows and pics of urban foxes with white markings . A symptom of increasing tameness in animals is increases in white markings ( and colour and shape mutations ).
 
Beany said:
I was quite surprised when I found out that Collared Doves were not present in the UK before the 1950s- they've colonised amazingly fast.

There seems to have been an initial release in the 1950's, when an aviary was damaged in Turkey.

But seeing, a few years ago, a map of their spread, there seems to be other "hot spots" as if other groups of Collared Doves, have been released along the way, there seems to have been a sudden un-explained spread from Spain.
 
For anyone else infested with pigeons, my second line of defense is a medical syringe, used as a water pistol. (I am saving up for a turkey baster....)
 
Are collared doves the grey ones with black rings around the neck? As you all have probably gathered I'm not an ornitholigist (almost the right spelling, possibly) - to me pigeons are the annoying "cooing" things that shit everywhere and can't walk without bobbing their heads at the same time. Doves of peace? blah - the film "Mars Attacks" had it about right I think.

Ryn - have you tried a catapult? Fairly inacurate but lots of fun (coo - eek!).

Jane.
 
I thought that they were brownish, with white neck-rings. At least , the ones around here are. And they go coo-coo coo-coo all the time as well. Arghhhhhhh......
 
Sorry beakboo - I've nothing against our feathered fiends really ;) There just seems to be an awful lot of them around - maybe Jima's Doncaster pigeons have all moved here? Oh, and the white ones sit on the telephone lines outside my window and stare at me... it's very disconcerting.

Jane.
 
Annasdottir said:
I thought that they were brownish, with white neck-rings. At least , the ones around here are. And they go coo-coo coo-coo all the time as well. Arghhhhhhh......

There's a couple of pairs of them out on my lawn right now Annasdottir...

Grey body, with brown back ?upper wings & with a thin black neck collar/band, which has a white background.

Dunno' about the noise they make though!!!!!!
 
A new article on pigeon control in London.
Link is dead. The MIA article can be accessed via the Wayback Machine.

Hawks Are a New Fighting Force Aimed at Ridding London of Vermin

Early on a crisp morning, while most of the capital still sleeps, an elite fighting force is ridding the city of vermin.

Buzz, a 2-year-old Harris hawk, is flying high above Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and other landmarks on the lookout for one of the greatest scourges of modern London - pigeons.

Buzz and his handler, Roger Polley, rise before 4 a.m. three days a week to climb to the top of the Treasury building, where Buzz is set free. His circling presence is enough to scare off recalcitrant pigeons.

"It's like having a tiger in your front room. You're not going to hang around to see if it can catch you and you are not going back in to see if it's still there," said Polley.

Falconry - the hunting of wild quarry using trained birds of prey - has been a sport in Europe since the 6th century, but only in recent years have canny falconers thought of turning their hobby into a business.

City officials say millions of pigeons in London are disease-ridden and have no respect for statues and historic buildings, leaving a collective calling card that costs thousands of dollars to clean off.

Their growing numbers led City Hall to revoke the license of the last pigeon-feed seller in Trafalgar Square last year, ending a decades-old tourist tradition. ...
FULL STORY (AT THE WAYBACK MACHINE):

https://web.archive.org/web/20021103121304/http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA2R3CL08D.html
 
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I loved this quote from rynner's link:

City officials say millions of pigeons in London are disease-ridden and have no respect for statues and historic buildings, leaving a collective calling card that costs thousands of dollars to clean off.

I can almost hear Ken Livingstone saying "Down with pigeons, Up with newts".

Jane.
 
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No longer a UL, pigeons can be controlled.

Chinese scientists have succeeded in implanting electrodes in the brain of a pigeon to remotely control the bird's flight, state media said.

Xinhua News Agency said the scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Center at Shandong University of Science and Technology in eastern China used the micro electrodes to command the bird to fly right or left, and up or down.

The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain according to electronic signals sent by the scientists via computer, mirroring natural signals generated by the brain, Xinhua quoted chief scientist Su Xuecheng as saying.

It was the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world, said Su, who conducted a similar successful experiment on mice in 2005.

http://www.physorg.com/news91787235.html
 
Well, thats no good is it? the idea is to get rid of the things, not market them as radio control toys!
 
It was the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world, said Su, who conducted a similar successful experiment on mice in 2005.

How did they get the mice to fly?
 
aussiehippy said:
It was the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world, said Su, who conducted a similar successful experiment on mice in 2005.

How did they get the mice to fly?

Well, my cat usually swoops them up with a paw and tosses them into the air.
 
Robotic birds scare 'fat' pigeons

The Robops squawk and flap their wings to scare off pigeons
Pigeons are not part of Liverpool's plans for its year as European Capital of Culture in 2008.
The city council is mounting a campaign to rid the city of the birds, which it says are being fattened up by the public feeding them leftovers.

Ten robotic birds of prey are being brought into the city centre to scare off the pigeons and visitors are being warned not to give them food.

The council wants to encourage the birds into parks and open spaces.

The mechanical birds - called "Robops" - are to sit on the roofs of buildings, and can be moved around.

They look like a Peregrine Falcon, which is a natural predator of pigeons, and even squawk and flap their wings to scare off the birds.


If there's no food, there'll be no pigeons

Councillor Berni Turner
Liverpool City Council

Councillor Berni Turner, Liverpool city council's executive member for the environment, said: "Feral pigeons are a real nuisance in the city centre, they fly up at people and they leave droppings everywhere which not only makes the city look really unattractive but can make surfaces slippery and dangerous.

"We need to get the message across that anyone who feeds the birds intentionally, or occasionally with leftovers such as sausage rolls or burgers, are responsible for our streets being so crowded with these birds."

The pigeons get bigger because their natural diet is seeds and insects, rather than high-fat junk food.

Councillor Turner said it is making them "overweight and gives them a scruffy, unhealthy appearance".

She added: "We want to be able to showcase our city centre in our birthday year and of course in 2008, so it's essential we tackle this issue now and educate members of the public that if there's no food, there'll be no pigeons."

The city council uses the equivalent of 88 man hours a day cleaning droppings from streets and buildings, at a cost of £160,000 a year.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 469451.stm
 
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