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Pigeons

Using his loaf: The peckish pigeon who got his head stuck in his snack
By Caroline Grant
Last updated at 10:34 PM on 16th March 2009

Life can be cruel sometimes - as this pigeon would undoubtedly agree.
One minute it could not believe its luck when it came across a whole bagel discarded in Brixton, South London.
The next, it had delivered a mighty peck which threw the tasty morsel up in the air - only to land around the bird's neck and agonisingly out of reach of its beak. 8)

The pigeon was left having to wait for a shower of rain to make the bagel soggy and fall off, or a fellow member of the flock to nibble it free.

Thankfully the bagel did not hamper the pigeon's ability to fly and he was able to launch himself off his perch above a bar in Brixton, London, with no trouble at all.

The birds, which can be found in most city centres scavenging for food, are known to eat almost everything that comes their way.

This could be thanks to fact they only have 37 taste buds compared to 10,000 on the average human tongue.

One of the places with the highest concentration of pigeons in this country used to be Trafalgar Square, where dozens of seed sellers set up shop to sell grain to tourists keen to feed the birds.

When numbers were at their peak, it was estimated there were at least 35,000 pigeons flapping around the square.

However, in 2000 the Mayor at the time, Ken Livingstone, decided to stop people selling seed in the square.

Other measures were introduced to discourage the pigeons, including the use of trained falcons.

Bird fanciers reacted by setting up groups - including Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons – and some tourists continued to feed the pigeons.

But in 2003 bylaws were enacted to ban the feeding of pigeons within the square.

These were secured in September 2007, sealing an outright ban on feeding birds in the area of the square.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... snack.html
 
Rock band Kings of Leon forced off stage by pigeon droppings
The chart topping rock band Kings of Leon was forced off stage after being bombarded by pigeon droppings.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 8:50PM BST 25 Jul 2010

The band was three songs in to a concert at the Verizon Amphitheatre in St Louis, Missouri, on Friday when they had to stop playing because of an infestation of the birds in the rafters above.

The bassist Jared Followhill had already been hit several times during the first two songs, including in the face. :shock:

He said: "We had 20 songs on the set list. By the end of the show, I would have been covered from head to toe."

The band's drummer, Nathan Followill wrote on Twitter, the microblogging website: "So sorry St. Louis. We had to bail, pigeons s***ing in Jared's mouth and it was too unsanitary to continue.

Andy Mendelsohn, the manager of the Nashville band, said: "Jared was hit several times during the first two songs. On the third song, when he was hit in the cheek and some of it landed near his mouth, they couldn't deal any longer."

"It's not only disgusting, it's a toxic health hazard. They really tried to hang in there.

"We want to apologise to our fans in St Louis and will come back as soon as we can."

Kings of Leon are due to play at V Festival in Britain next month.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... pings.html
 
A pigeon was nesting in my Travelodge room
By Anna Edwards
Last updated at 2:00 AM on 24th September 2011

She wasn’t looking for five-star luxury. But a little privacy might have been nice.
Instead, Rosie Shapter had to share her Travelodge room with a nesting pigeon.

Mrs Shapter, 60, opened the door to find the bird flying round inside.
She shooed it out of the window but then couldn’t get to sleep because it cooed continually on the window ledge.

The following morning she discovered why... it had been chased from its nest, containing a single egg, underneath her double bed.

Yesterday Travelodge bosses insisted the room had been thoroughly cleaned and claimed the bird must have built the nest after the cleaners left.
The budget hotel chain’s advertisements feature a cooing pigeon outside a guest’s window which is told to: ‘Jog on, feathers’ so the guest is not disturbed. 8)

Mrs Shapter, from Drayton, Somerset, said: ‘I just couldn’t believe that there could be a pigeon nesting on an egg in my room.
‘I was really shocked – how was it not found when the room was cleaned?
‘The poor bird had obviously been pining to sit on its egg or lay another during the night. I felt rather sorry for it when I found the nest.’

Former Charity Commission worker Rosie booked a stay at the Bath Central Travelodge, in Somerset – once the city’s Royal York Hotel – in May for her daughter-in-law’s hen night.
She checked into the £29-a-head family room along with daughter Claire and daughter-in-law Lorraine Laing.
‘The first thing I saw was the bird,’ she said. ‘I just screamed.
'I flapped my arms around a bit and it flew out of the window.
'My daughter came up and we shut the window and closed the curtains.
‘But during the night it was making loads of noise outside.
'When my daughter got up she noticed some sticks under our bed and we found the nest.’

The group had to make a hasty exit from the hotel to catch a train, but Mrs Shapter emailed Travelodge to complain when she got home.
Bosses refused to believe her until she emailed them a picture of the nest and egg. Travelodge has apologised and refunded the £179 cost of their stay.

The RSPB says the pigeon could have assembled the nest in the few hours between the cleaners leaving and the guests arriving.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1Ys4bo8uW
 
Full story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-s ... d-19343027

Racing pigeon losses baffle fanciers

Hundreds of racing pigeons from clubs throughout Scotland vanished at the weekend in mysterious circumstances.

Some fanciers are even considering stopping flying the birds until they establish why so many failed to return.

Weather patterns and birds of prey scaring the pigeons off track have been blamed in the past, but experts have been baffled by the latest incident.

The Scottish Borders was worst hit with only 13 of 232 birds sent from Galashiels to Thirsk making it back.

Ian Noble, president of the Scottish Homing Union, said: "Through in Ayrshire we lost 40 per cent of our birds at the weekend, Glasgow was similar and we're getting reports of big losses elsewhere, although it does seem that the Borders is the worst affected.

"The weather at the weekend was fine and although birds of prey will kill a few and scare many others, that can't be the single reason either.

"We've had problems before with birds going missing, but this is by far the worst I've come across."

Homing pigeons can travel from up to 400 miles away in a single day - using magnetic fields as well as sight for navigation.

Scientists believe solar winds can distort magnetic fields during certain weather systems...
Click to expand...

Quick, what eats pigeons? Strange story, they can't just have disappeared. If they were dead, you would expect a lot of bird corpses littered around, wouldn't you?
 
gncxx said:
Quick, what eats pigeons? Strange story, they can't just have disappeared. If they were dead, you would expect a lot of bird corpses littered around, wouldn't you?
Click to expand...

Those pterydactyls have escaped from Isla Sorna.
 
In a load of pies somewhere.
 
I think a lot of those missing pigeons have shown up around my house. I noticed at the weekend a huge flock of them like to settle on a roof, then all fly off and round in a wide circle before settling on another roof. Is this how pigeons get their kicks, hanging out with their pigeon pals and going aimlessly round in circles, or is there another reason?

Looks quite impressive when they soar by, I must admit.
 
A racing pigeon hung out in my back garden for the best part of the week.

I have a bird feeder so I figured it had just stopped for a rest and a feed. But when it was still there the next day and the day after I was worried it had been hurt. My garden is small and enclosed and the neighbours' cats often get in (much less since I started chucking buckets of water over them!), so not wanting it to get mauled to death I fetched a box, lined it with a teatowel and went out to catch it.

Bloody thing just flew away and sat looking at me from the top of the tree!

It hung around for a few more days after that before it vanished. Maybe some of these vanished pigeons are the same; they just get bored and move into people's gardens instead?
 
Here's a new pigeon meme that's been brought about by the Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC 6 Music. The call of a woodpigeon can be identified by the way it fits the words "My toe hurts, Betty!" Once you've noticed this it's impossible to un-notice.

Here's the RSPB woodpigeon page:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdgui ... index.aspx
Where you can hear a clip of the bird calling "My toe hurts, Betty!"
 
I feed garden birds from hanging containers which is meant to deter pigeons because they can't land (the scale is wrong) and they can't hover effectively either.

It's been fine for about 3 years. Now one of the damn things has learned to make like a humming bird! It toboggans (sp?) down the garage roof so it can lift up into the right position and then does this energy intensive very fast wing thing that none of the others can do.

However, it seems to be running classes so we have to come up with another obstacle. The ring of canes around the feeding area looks possible I think.

I saw it refine the technique over a period of weeks. To start with it was bashing its head on the fat balls every time it launched off the roof.

Haven't seen a garden bird experimenting and learning like this before - new to me.
 
I like your experiments. I find that starlings land on those bag of nuts claw first to gradually rip the bag. The peanuts land on the floor and they can eat them.
 
Love birds, beware: One Ohio county is planning to spike bird seed with birth control in hopes of keeping pigeons from despoiling the renovated exterior of its 19th-century courthouse.

Wayne County is spending millions to renovate a courthouse built in 1878 in Wooster. But the county has long had a problem with pigeon droppings on metal statues and other ornamental elements atop the courthouse.

A county commissioner says there are plans to put birth control chemicals specific to pigeons in bird seed to help control the population. Officials hope it will cut the flock in half.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/...-at-war-over-beauty-queens-selfie-307836.html
 
My wife had a dovecote for years & during this time a fair number of racing pigeons just arrived & moved in & at one point included a Belgium racer.

There was no point in sending them back, as the racing fraternity tended to neck them on return as failures.

It just seems that birds get disoriented & lost & find a new flock. Others get taken by birds of prey,as happened to one of my wives birds, which was taken & killed in front of her!
 
What was the bird of prey? I've seen a sparrowhawk catch and eat a blackbird, but a pigeon would be more of a meal, too much even for that creature.
 
A buzzard could easily take one, I'd have thought. There are several buzzards very close to my house, and they're surprisingly big up close.
 
I was thinking a golden eagle, if Felix lives near (or up) a mountain. I did once see a magpie eat a sparrow, but it was dead (the sparrow, not etc).
 
I've seen an Incan dove snatched and eaten by a peregrine falcon in an instant, and Incan doves are about the same size or just slightly smaller than pigeons (they are related, IIRC)

Our neighborhood has bald eagles, too, and the things are enormous and could easily take a small dog. In the town where we used to live, there was a few cases of dogs being taken by birds of prey.
 
GNC said:
What was the bird of prey? I've seen a sparrowhawk catch and eat a blackbird, but a pigeon would be more of a meal, too much even for that creature.
Click to expand...

A female sparrowhawk is a lot larger than the male and one had a collared dove in our garden once.
 
No not a eagle, the largest things we get around here are red kites.

She says that it was just a bird that dropped down onto the pigeon & took it out of the air.
 
A friend of mine told me something about using messenger pigeons to contact certain occult groups in the U.K. in the 80s I believe. I thought this was an interesting concept. No idea if has been put into practice. I do know from personal experience there are many groups who do not advertise their existence or seek out new initiates online or in print. Maybe such obscure methods of communication are in use by certain groups.
 
It's an interesting idea. But you would need an initial contact to pass on the pigeons, that would return with the message or messages. Then of course there is the care of the birds in between messages.

Mind you this all might appeal to people of an occult or secretive turn of mind.
 
I just came across this news article from February 19, 2014. Whilst these were only utilised for Regla de Ochá ritual use, not communication, it's an interesting story nonetheless.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...lled-stolen-20140219_1_pigeons-santeria-birds

800 pigeons used in Santeria rituals stolen
February 19, 2014|By Desiree Stennett, Orlando Sentinel

Pigeons are much more than dirty park pests to Maria Morales. She's cashing in on them as part of her retirement plan.

But Morales and her husband, Alberto, suffered a financial setback over the weekend when thieves stole more than 800 valuable homing pigeons from their Marion County farm, and slaughtered 100 more.
Click to expand...
 
The more scientists study pigeons, the more they learn how their brains—no bigger than the tip of an index finger—operate in ways not so different from our own.

In a new study from the University of Iowa, researchers found that pigeons can categorize and name both natural and manmade objects—and not just a few objects. These birds categorized 128 photographs into 16 categories, and they did so simultaneously.

Ed Wasserman, UI professor of psychology and corresponding author of the study, says the finding suggests a similarity between how pigeons learn the equivalent of words and the way children do.

"Unlike prior attempts to teach words to primates, dogs, and parrots, we used neither elaborate shaping methods nor social cues," Wasserman says of the study, published online in the journal Cognition. "And our pigeons were trained on all 16 categories simultaneously, a much closer analog of how children learn words and categories."

For researchers like Wasserman, who has been studying animal intelligence for decades, this latest experiment is further proof that animals—whether primates, birds, or dogs—are smarter than once presumed and have more to teach scientists. ...

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-similarity-pigeons-equivalent-words-children.html
 
I am in a constant battle with feral pigeons at our house, and have reached a point of fevered pursuit where I nearly recognise pigeons as individuals. Especially the shiny-in-charge kind. They (all) are generally much-more intelligent than I'd like them to be....have you ever noticed that railway pigeons often are missing some/all of their claw-toes? Not sure of the mechanism (rats? other pigeons?)
 
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