Certain wildlife can be very divisive. Foxes, rats, badgers and even beavers spring to mind as species that are not welcome or celebrated in all quarters. In the bird-world, I’m thinking that the humble pigeon falls into this category.
Take the pigeons in our garden. Exactly one year ago I was bemoaning the fact that we had five socking great wood pigeons stomping about the place. To their credit, they were excellent at eating up all the spilt birdseed under one of our feeders but unfortunately that feeder also hangs above my lavender bushes and, let me tell you, wood pigeons are no respecters of the delicacy of lavender! A wood pigeon is a sizeable creature and lavender can be quite brittle. In addition to stomping around, they were also constantly flirting and sparring with one another, leaping off the ground with thunderous wing clapping and bashing. To be honest, I was quite relieved when they seemed to be taking a break from our garden. That was until the ferals turned up.
I cannot tell you when this happened but sometime over the summer and into last autumn, for the first time since moving here well over twenty years ago, we found ourselves with feral pigeons in the garden. To begin with it was just two quite smart, neatly striped birds but soon two became at least five. Of course it could be our fault. We moved the fat ball feeder from where it was creating a nasty greasy mess over a rather attractive plant, to a new location suspended over a bit of grass. It didn’t seem to bother the regular garden birds who adjusted to the new location within hours but it would seem that the patch of crumbled fat ball beneath became a magnet for these feral pigeons. You might say we shouldn’t be concerned. Feral pigeons are as much God’s creatures as the next bird but what we have observed is that the ferals have driven away both the wood pigeons and the collar doves who used to visit regularly. Since Christmas, the wood pigeons do seem to be trying to make a comeback. However, earlier today I saw flagrant aggression from the ferals towards the wood pigeons with two ferals chasing off the larger bird. This is quite sad to see. We are now having a bit of a re-think in terms of the bird food we provide. Apparently feral pigeons are less likely to eat food mixes containing wheat so we are reading ingredients lists quite carefully.
Looking at what else deters feral pigeons, of course I’ve come across references to railway stations and other venues using hawks. So may be we just need to encourage the local birds of prey to come soaring our way a bit more frequently to grab their dinner! Another option is to position a predator bird statue somewhere in the garden but I can think of several reasons or not doing that. Firstly, presumably it would scare off other birds too? And secondly, anyone who has seen the ‘mock owls’ outside the Pheasantry café in Bushy Park will know that this simply does not work!
That said, I fear more birds of prey might scare away the one collar dove that is braving the fray. Collar doves are the elegant members of the pigeon crowd with their beige colouring, neat black collars and gentle coo’ing. We used to see them in fives and sixes in the garden but not for some time now. In January I saw a pair together late one afternoon but now there seems to be just one. Sadly it was a collar dove that I once witnessed being hunted down by a female sparrow hawk in our garden. The hawk drove the poor dove into the corner of our patio causing it to crash into the doors. Fortunately it didn’t stun itself and I think it may have got away on that occasion. Of course sparrow hawks have to eat too!
So at least for the time being, it seems that we are destined to have Percy pigeon dominating the garden and lining up along the roof ready to swoop down the minute we’ve headed back indoors. As for the cats? Well they seem to find it the equivalent of cat TV!
Outside the Backdoor 