Pigeons

[Crackle]

I thought you may like to see Stevie, he is very friendly, probably too friendly for his own good.
His parents are Ebony and Ivory, so he George's (our original garden pigeon) grandchild.
https://youtu.be/6VTQuqgUecs

Mike

[Crackle]

sorry ran out of edit time.

Stevie was hatched during the cold winter months with the aid of a small heater to keep him warm during the nights if he was left alone.
Ebony and Ivory have had 2 mote clutches of eggs since but unfortunately they have been broken.

We sadly lost one of our pigeons to our cat Tom. The pigeon escaped the Toms clutches but was very badly injured, eventually when she came down off the roof I was able to capture her. Her leg and thigh were badly damaged so I took her to a local wildlife centre.
Enquiries the next day confirmed the vet had put her to sleep.
Tom is not allowed out at the moment, he has got the taste for pigeon and cant be trusted, he had already killed and half eaten another "stranger" pigeon a few weeks ago.

I have decided that the pigeons must be encouraged to go, for their own good, and it is not fair on Tom to keep him in. But I dont want him to hurt our pigeon friends either. So Ebony and Ivory's house is now closed, and George and his new mate (Gracie) house will also be closed permanently after the current 2 babies have fully fledged. All feeding will also be stopped.

Its a pity as we do enjoy their antics and watching the babies grow up and learning to fly.
But it is obvious that with the 2 bird houses there is likely, by the end of the summer, to be another 12 or 16 new pigeons. Which will all add to the existing 8 or so that have already been born in our garden and who are hanging around most of the day, let alone all the interlopers that they encourage who come and go.
I believe eventually they will mostly disperse to find new nest sites and sources of food.
But I will miss them, especially Stevie.
https://youtu.be/6VTQuqgUecs

[Refugee]

We have got one nesting in a tree in a garden the other side of the rear access path.
The starlings are nesting in our roof this year. I can hear the starling chicks now.

[Crackle]

Our cat "Tom" killed another pigeon about 2 weeks ago.
I was going to let him out side to play around in the garden as he likes to do whilst supervised by me.
He had not been out in the garden since the incident with Two-Tone, the last pigeon he injured and was put down.
I still cant believe what happened it all happened so fast.
The garden was clear of pigeons, but as I opened the back door one of the newest babies "Jonny" landed on the path about 10 feet from the door just as I opened it and Tom dashed out at him. Jonny just made it into the air in time to escape as Tom leaped into the air and just touched Jonny as he took off. But Jonny came down again about 8 feet away and Tom was on him in an instant. I rushed over and got tom off Jonny, Jonny flew off in a mad dash and crashed into the fence at full speed, fluttered to the ground and lay dead. It was so quick, I believe Toms first bite must have been so hard it punctured right into Jonny's body and lungs as there was blood coming from his beak. He must have died more or less instantly and the short flight into the fence was reflex.
Its natural for a cat to hunt these birds, but I still feel to blame for opening the door to let Tom out.
Jonny's sister "Baby Grace", named after her mother "Grace" as she looks so like her mum, is still around and doing well.
Stevie is still around and tries hard to land on your hand when ever we are in the garden, as well as the other surviving pigeons who have been born on our garden.
Most if not all of the interlopers have dispersed since I have not been feeding them on a regular basis.
All feeding has stopped and the 2 bird houses have been closed off for some time now but George and Grace, and Ivory and Ebony are still guarding them jealously.

I feel its a pity we cant let them continue to use the bird houses I made, where they built their nests and made their home, seeing them there saddens me. But seeing them injured by Tom is worse so I need to encourage them to all go.
Having a wild life friendly garden and keeping cats do not go together.

Mike

[pwdrive]

Pigeons......We have about twenty odd next door, but worse than them for cat carnage where we live is rabbits, loads of 'em here...decapitations mess cleared up on a daily basis this time of the year, just one fresh rabbit carcase today though so far, sometimes it's several a day.

Lawrence.

[Refugee]

We got rammed yesterday.
We took the hit on the front room window.
My other half watched the pigeon that did it flying off looking a bit bedraggled.

[Pye Man]

It's a frequent experience here. Last time there was a beautiful bird pattern on the sitting room window for a fair while.

One of my near neighbours seems to suffer more and has in the past resorted to putting silhouettes of birds in their windows. I was in the garden a couple of weeks ago and I watched as a wood pigeon flew full tilt into their window. Made a mighty bang and then flew from whence it came.

Back in the garden a few days later I could hear a peculiar rustling noise. I discovered that they had hung some dangling strips of what looks like shiny silver material above the window. I think I would find the  flickering reflection of light off these strips more annoying than the occasional crashing bird.

We have a couple of pairs of resident wood pigeons in the immediate locality. I think they nested in one of my trees this year but as it is an evergreen it's hard to tell. There was a lot of coming and going but I didn't see any young.

They do amuse me as they go about in pairs. One will fly to a perch and the other will soon follow. Sometimes they perch for ages on a branch, side by side, like a long married couple just sitting and watching the world go by.

[Refugee]

Round here at the beginning of the nesting season they have boxing matches to sort out the pairing for the year.
I once got rammed by one while I was in a small van waiting for on coming traffic at a short single file section of road.
Surely the reflections of the other side of the street should be enough to stop them from flying into our windows.
We had one more than 20 years ago that hit a second floor front room window in a flat. I did not know what had hit us until I spotted a non air worthy pigeon waiting for it to get dark so that the local fox could come and clear it up.
In full sun the next morning you could see a print of everything including its eye.

[ppppenguin]

I get occasional bird strikes on windows. Mainly pigeons. Sometimes leaving an obviously bird shaped mark. Only 1 has died in the 20+ years I've been in this house.

[Refugee]

Are those the city ones with gammy feet?