Pigeons

Pigeon

Scientific name:

•        Columba livia

Common name/s:

•        Pigeon

•        Homing Pigeon

•        Rock Dove

History:

The pigeon or less commonly but rather fitting “flying rat” as some call them were brought to Australia around the 1870s by European settlers to be used as homing pigeons. The purpose of this was to deliver mail due to the pigeons natural homing ability.

Over the years many escaped or were released as they became no longer needed die to the development of a post service and technological advances.

These escaped birds then dominated the landscape as food availability, water sources and nesting sites were plentiful, particularly in urban areas.

Pigeon at the time was also a food source, this practise isn’t very common these days especially in Australia.

Ecology:

Pigeons can be found natively throughout Europe for the most part, however they can also be found in parts of Africa and Egypt.

Their typical colour is a blue-grey with iridescent feathers around the head/neck area. In saying this they can come in a range of other colours such as white, brown and black and white. These colours have come to be mainly through selective breeding, although some are from other breeds that have been used for show and escaped over the years.

In captivity they can live for up to 16 years but in the wild 3-4 years is a lot more common.

Pigeons are prolific breeders and usually lay 1-2 eggs, these will hatch at around the 18-day mark. During this time, they will feed the young using a special secretion called “Pigeon milk” which is produced in the crop.

The young are ready to leave the nest at around 35 days.

Pigeons as mentioned earlier have amazing natural homing abilities and so once they have a sense for where home is they typically won’t fly too far.

Their typical food source is

• Grains

• grasses

• and small insects

although they will more than happily take to human food crumbs or people feeding them unknowingly feeding the problem at the source.

This behaviour has enabled them to spread due to never being shy of a meal.

The urban environment has also made way to being an excellent nesting site. The birds will often use roof cavities, bridge underpasses, gutters and whatever other human made structures they can re-purpose as a nest.

Impacts:

Pigeon droppings are an extreme area for concern, especially as they live so close to humans. It contains high levels of uric acid which over time can cause issues for any building surface but more so for historic buildings and statues of importance.

It is also an area for concern in regards to WHS, this is a serious problem and one that many of us have witnessed around local food venues where the birds enter the premises or help themselves to unattended tables.

In roof voids their droppings can accumulate very rapidly and this can cause respiration issues in humans.

There are also a number of diseases they carry, some of which can be spread to humans.

These include:

•        Psittacosis which is a bacterial infection

•        Salmonella

•        Cryptococosis which is a fungal disease

Control methods:

A number of different methods are used to control this nuisance species. One of the methods very commonly used which you may have seen are called bird spikes. These are strands of thin metal “spikes” that deter birds from roosting in certain areas.

These do work but over time fall off, in some instances people have witnessed birds placing nesting materials on and in-between the spikes so they act almost as a structural foundation for the nest.

Outside of this method trapping and ground shooting using modern air rifles have been used with success.

Ground based shooting is very popular from a business and warehouse perspective as the results are very quick and effective.