I had planned to write about caring for our feathered friends in the garden over the winter. I have had to put it on hold for this week to reply to a fabulous letter that appeared in last week’s paper. Students from Moville Community College went to the Inish Times office to get a feel for the world of newspaper printing. The students have written letters to the editor airing their views on local and worldwide issues. Some are in this week’s edition and some were printed last week. The letter that caught my eye was written by M.H. who has a bit of a problem with pigeons.
To remind you of the letter it commented mainly on pigeons leaving droppings on windows, cars and peoples heads. M.H. then went on to call the pigeons “flying rats” and thinks that the council should employ someone to shoot them down! At the end of the letter there is a plea for help with this “crusade”. The letter was really well written, if a little frightening.
Imagine that the council sets on a person with a gun. What happens to the worker when the pigeons have been eliminated? How does the weapon wielding council worker justify the job? Do the council set their sights on stray dogs? Getting rid of those wouldn’t take long so maybe the next victims might be people who drop litter, traffic violators or even people who spit out their chewing gum! There’s the answer to the blobs that appear everywhere in Moville…. it’s chewing gum being thrown around! I have spent the best part of a day looking around Inishowen and I have only seen two wood pigeons so far (these can be cooked up for a tasty meal apparently).
FEED THE BIRDS, TUPPENCE TO BAG ‘EM
Some cities have real problems with pigeons. M.H. is right with the comment about them being germ carriers, they are pretty dirty. I remember when I was in Nottingham that there were a few methods used to deter these “flying rats” The first was to introduce a virus, very similar to using mixamatosis on rabbits. This method was withdrawn after a time as other birds were dropping from the sky as well as pigeons. The next move was to put up netting on the eves of buildings so that the flying vermin couldn’t make a nest. This proved to be impractical as when a net was put up the pigeons would just move to the next building. To put netting up all over the city would prove far too costly. When this idea didn’t work the council decided to head off to the market square and try to educate the swarms of people that go to the city every day with bags full of stale bread and peanuts to feed the massive flock of pigeons that descended on the square. Just as a point of interest in Nottingham it is seen as good luck to be poohed on by a bird. I can tell you there are a lot of lucky people in that city!
STROKE OF GENIUS
The last idea, which I think was a stroke of genius, was for Nottinghamshire council to employ a young entrepreneur with a large compressed air, bird-scaring machine that emitted a large bang every 60 seconds. He would set it up in the square and eventually after a few days of constant banging, the birds would all disappear. Bear in mind that this doesn’t kill the birds, it just scares them off. Therefore the pigeons would move to the next populated area, which was Derby. Hot on their heels would be compressed air man with his banging machine. Here, it would be Derbyshire council paying to scare the birds away, this time to Leicester where, of course, Leicestershire council would foot the bill. This man has been travelling around the midlands now for fifteen years moving this flock of birds (and their offspring of course) from one county after another and filling his pockets with peoples taxes. He would arrive back in Nottingham every year and the council happily paid for his services, not realising they were paying to get rid of the same birds….genius!
So in conclusion I think that if M.H. still feels angry with our feathered vermin on leaving school, there will be a nice little earner of a job just waiting to be had. The pigeons could be scared all over the North West and you’d be home every night for your tea!
Horticultural,environmental.
To remind you of the letter it commented mainly on pigeons leaving droppings on windows, cars and peoples heads. M.H. then went on to call the pigeons “flying rats” and thinks that the council should employ someone to shoot them down! At the end of the letter there is a plea for help with this “crusade”. The letter was really well written, if a little frightening.
Imagine that the council sets on a person with a gun. What happens to the worker when the pigeons have been eliminated? How does the weapon wielding council worker justify the job? Do the council set their sights on stray dogs? Getting rid of those wouldn’t take long so maybe the next victims might be people who drop litter, traffic violators or even people who spit out their chewing gum! There’s the answer to the blobs that appear everywhere in Moville…. it’s chewing gum being thrown around! I have spent the best part of a day looking around Inishowen and I have only seen two wood pigeons so far (these can be cooked up for a tasty meal apparently).
FEED THE BIRDS, TUPPENCE TO BAG ‘EM
Some cities have real problems with pigeons. M.H. is right with the comment about them being germ carriers, they are pretty dirty. I remember when I was in Nottingham that there were a few methods used to deter these “flying rats” The first was to introduce a virus, very similar to using mixamatosis on rabbits. This method was withdrawn after a time as other birds were dropping from the sky as well as pigeons. The next move was to put up netting on the eves of buildings so that the flying vermin couldn’t make a nest. This proved to be impractical as when a net was put up the pigeons would just move to the next building. To put netting up all over the city would prove far too costly. When this idea didn’t work the council decided to head off to the market square and try to educate the swarms of people that go to the city every day with bags full of stale bread and peanuts to feed the massive flock of pigeons that descended on the square. Just as a point of interest in Nottingham it is seen as good luck to be poohed on by a bird. I can tell you there are a lot of lucky people in that city!
STROKE OF GENIUS
The last idea, which I think was a stroke of genius, was for Nottinghamshire council to employ a young entrepreneur with a large compressed air, bird-scaring machine that emitted a large bang every 60 seconds. He would set it up in the square and eventually after a few days of constant banging, the birds would all disappear. Bear in mind that this doesn’t kill the birds, it just scares them off. Therefore the pigeons would move to the next populated area, which was Derby. Hot on their heels would be compressed air man with his banging machine. Here, it would be Derbyshire council paying to scare the birds away, this time to Leicester where, of course, Leicestershire council would foot the bill. This man has been travelling around the midlands now for fifteen years moving this flock of birds (and their offspring of course) from one county after another and filling his pockets with peoples taxes. He would arrive back in Nottingham every year and the council happily paid for his services, not realising they were paying to get rid of the same birds….genius!
So in conclusion I think that if M.H. still feels angry with our feathered vermin on leaving school, there will be a nice little earner of a job just waiting to be had. The pigeons could be scared all over the North West and you’d be home every night for your tea!
Horticultural,environmental.
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