I Hate Pigeons

MarkEvan

MarkEvan

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At the moment I have to be being visited by the most persistent pigeon known to man. I have several feeders out of which one is a lantern type feeder which has 3 metal rungs to enable smaller birds to land on them and feed, here's a link to give you an idea:

http://www.gardenbird.co.uk/Black-Lantern-Seed-Feeder/Bird-Food/40-52-1529,default,pd.html

It's not that particular feeder but it's mostly the same design.


Anyway about a month ago seed in that particular feeder started to empty pretty damn quick and I didn't know why....the answer came a couple of days later when looking out the window I saw to my horror instead of the usual goldfinches a big fat pigeon with its feet on the metal rung flapping its wings to keep balanced while it ate all my sunflower hearts. Not wishing to allow this I ran out and scared the pigeon away......... the mystery of the fast disappearing food had been answered.
I thought carefully about how I could stop it feeding and decided to tape the metal rungs up out of the way which worked nicely. I can't tell you how much smug satisfaction I took out of watching this pigeon try and land on the feeder only to have to turn back due to no foothold.

That should have been the end of it......man verses pigeon, man wins......but nope today I got home from work to see it flapping its wings like crazy hovering and munching on my sunflower hearts, does it not realise that the return from the food is going to be meagre compared to the energy used to ascertain said food?

Surely this is not the norm :shrug:
 
borisnikon said:
Shoot it! Its only a pigeon and it's on your land so...
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Yeah, get a nice profile, or maybe a nice flight shot :D

Ya cant go shooting pigeons, thats immoral. Nail a starving cat to the bird feeder, that should do it :LOL:
 
i wouldnt follow that advice it may be on your land and they may be on the general licence but you have to have good reason to shoot them and of tryed other ways of scaring them off
 
I can't offer a solution for your feeder, but for more standard looking seed feeders you can get cages that will exclude the bigger birds (and also squirrels).

Wood pigeons still come into our garden but now they can only pick dropped seed from the ground under the feeder.

It is the only way I have found to protect the seed.

Dave
 
astraman1 said:
i wouldnt follow that advice it may be on your land and they may be on the general licence but you have to have good reason to shoot them and of tryed other ways of scaring them off
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Unless it is impractical or ineffective to do so. And there are various reasons for control although i think it would be a stretch to argue it was to allow more significant and photogenic birds access to the feed station :LOL:
 
astraman1 said:
i wouldnt follow that advice it may be on your land and they may be on the general licence but you have to have good reason to shoot them and of tryed other ways of scaring them off
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What? Care to explain further please?
 
Under the revised general licence (i think it was revised back in 2007 or so) you have to show (or be satisfied) that other legal methods of control or discouragement are either impractical or ineffective. (which is very easy)

In reality this means very little, although it does call into question if you can shoot quarry on the general licence purely for sport. I think there was some clarification on this point released - but i can't find it at the moment.
 
Am i the only one that thinks this thread and the behaviour suggested in it is out of order for a wildlife photographer?
This is supposed to be a wildlife photography section of the forum and this seems to be a thread talking mainly about shooting a bird that's been tempted to a place by seed being put out to attract birds.
My respect for humanity takes another hit... :(

Well done mark richards for posting something of sense finally
 
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dunganick said:
Under the revised general licence (i think it was revised back in 2007 or so) you have to show (or be satisfied) that other legal methods of control or discouragement are either impractical or ineffective. (which is very easy)

In reality this means very little, although it does call into question if you can shoot quarry on the general licence purely for sport. I think there was some clarification on this point released - but i can't find it at the moment.
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Didn`t know about that, shall look into it further,thanks.
 
I had to build my own cage for my feeders it took a couple of trial goes before I settled on a heavy duty mesh fastened to the tray with wire and cable ties. This works great it is just a little more hastle to keep the tray clean though.

LY48Z.jpg


I also bought a guardian cage for the ground feeder but the pigeons can still get into that so I have had to buy the smaller sized mesh version with works great at keeping the pigeons out but blackbirds cant get in though.

HS7YP.jpg



Now if only this deterrent would drop by more frequently :)

uCDDK.jpg
 
What do you put on the top of the home made cage set up Dale?
 
fracster said:
What do you put on the top of the home made cage set up Dale?
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I've not got anything on the top I've just bent some of the wires over to prevent the stupider pigeons from trying to dive in head first. on my other feeder I used cable tries to prevent anything from getting in at the top.
They totally ignore the feeders now instead they wait underneath for anything that drops.
 
Werecow said:
Am i the only one that thinks this thread and the behaviour suggested in it is out of order for a wildlife photographer?
This is supposed to be a wildlife photography section of the forum and this seems to be a thread talking mainly about shooting a bird that's been tempted to a place by seed being put out to attract birds.
My respect for humanity takes another hit... :(

Well done mark richards for posting something of sense finally
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Photographers have to eat too ;)
 
Werecow said:
Am i the only one that thinks this thread and the behaviour suggested in it is out of order for a wildlife photographer?
This is supposed to be a wildlife photography section of the forum and this seems to be a thread talking mainly about shooting a bird that's been tempted to a place by seed being put out to attract birds.
My respect for humanity takes another hit... :(

Well done mark richards for posting something of sense finally
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Sorry to sound blunt but, have you ever been to the country? Pigeons are pests, they need to be controlled. Many things do, its not a threat to humanity, don't worry.
 
fracster said:
What? Care to explain further please?
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see post 11 on farm land its impractical due to the size and obvious reason of protecting crops so you can shoot them now in your back garden the only real reason you could use is for shooting them is health grounds if you have alot of ie(feral pigeons) pooing everywhere it becomes a health concern shooting them because they are eating bird food you put out well if that gets reported you could find yourself in a lot of trouble

scaring tactics normally include like i ballon man that gets blown up by a fan and then goes down and then back up again constantly or bird scarers which is like gunfire used a set intervals ect
 
Just to clarify for werecow's sake I don't intend to shoot the bird. Nor do I have any problem with Pigeons coming to the garden for food your going to get them so long as you consistently put bird food out, its for this reason I put food out both on a table and on a ground feeder.......what I have an issue with is this one pigeon's (at least I only think its one particular pigeon) desire to eat all my sunflower hearts while ignoring the food on the table and ground feeder.

The cage type feeders look like a good deal but I have had one before and found hardly any birds visited it (though it was a peanut feeder). I might have to give it another go though either that or something else as I'd rather not stop feeding altogether :thinking: mind you I could just get rid of that feeder as it seems that's the only one it can use.
 
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astraman1 said:
see post 11 on farm land its impractical due to the size and obvious reason of protecting crops so you can shoot them now in your back garden the only real reason you could use is for shooting them is health grounds if you have alot of ie(feral pigeons) pooing everywhere it becomes a health concern shooting them because they are eating bird food you put out well if that gets reported you could find yourself in a lot of trouble

scaring tactics normally include like i ballon man that gets blown up by a fan and then goes down and then back up again constantly or bird scarers which is like gunfire used a set intervals ect
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Ah, ok then, i`ll ask everybody to stop shooting them and get scarers instead then.
 
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