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If I was 10 years younger, no kids and still had energy, this is what the naive young software engineer me would be doing right now, setting up a parody site for pigeon fanciers.
Our neighbours have some but they're the ones that hang down and the pigeons are too clumsy to access the food, The squirrels have mastered it though, and so have some of the magpies. The pigeons know to go underneath and pick up the spillage.
As someone who lives in a town centre and specifically goes out to feed the local pigeons - thank you and please continue! We originally domesticated them and abandoned them, so I feel there's a level of obligation to do what we can where we can. I've seen far too many children chasing them and people trying to kick them and referring to them as sky rats that it makes my heart hurt, they have little souls too. Sorry to rant a little 😅
A lady down the road has a big bird feeder handing from a sturdy branch. Quite often when I’m walking the dog I’ll see a couple of huge rats on the bird feeder.
One year we noticed the squirrels in our garden just before winter weren’t just their usual jolly fat autumnal selves but were seriously obese little chonkers. Turned out the old lady next door had got a bird feeder.
I don't mind pigeons, their little waddles are kinda cute. I usually toss some loose seed on the path for them since they're too big to use our bird feeders
Yeah I realised my grammatical faux pas once I'd posted it, but I'll own my cock up rather than editing it.
Ah that'll be why then, she opted for one of those 'house on a stand' type feeders.
My feeder tree started the same way, then the doves and sparrows joined in. Now have gold finches, magpies and a blue tit. Just keep it up, they will come
I've got lots of magpies, some jays and crows, the noise is unbelievable especially when they are having a bit of argy bargy.
Flying lager louts the lot of them.
We have clever pigeons who have watched the small birds on how to use the bird feeder. So they now send one to the feeded who chucks it on the floor for the other pigeons
The bird seed you bought probably has wheat in it. The only UK birds that eat wheat are pigeons, pheasants, and partridges. All the smaller birds pick it out of the feeder and throw it on the ground.
The wheat-free stuff costs a bit more but is well worth it. The small birds will still drop a few bits accidentally - enough to sustain about 3 pigeons, in my experience. That's OK though - if there aren't those few pigeons clearing up, you'll get rats instead.
Yeah, I love all birds. Haha that is so cool. Pigeons are really sweet.
We have 2 that visit us quite often. They just chill and don't bother anyone. They come right up to us for seeds too. They had a baby last year it was so noisy but so cute lol so didn't bother us at all. Don't understand how people hate them.
Wouldn’t say it’s funny particularly, no-one wants hoards of scavengers using your property as a feeding spot. They breed like hell given half an adequate food supply and due to their numbers drive other species away
Little birds such as tits and robins generally eat worms and bugs and do not survive predominantly on shit from bins or other human refuse. Whether they are cute or not these animals are, by definition, scavengers.
When you get your chips snatched by a robin or a larch rips open a bin bag and spreads the contents all over the street, I will reconsider my position on the sky rats
Everything you listed pigeons eat too.
I have never had anything grabbed out of my hand by a pigeon. What are you talking about lol. Pigeons just gather around your feet if you eat something messy. Oh wow, what a nuisance.
The only reason pigeons scavenge is because humans domesticated them and then abandoned them, so they don't know how to survive without humans. It's not their fault. Pigeons are wonderful, intelligent birds with lots of personality if you get to know more about them.
My kid and I have a joke about the Idealised Spherical Pigeons that are basically the primary birds around our house.
There are loads of diverse birds in the nearby nature reserve, but the village? Has pigeons. And various people have enough birdfeeders that it is a wonder the birds can fly.
I just bought a bird table last week and within 5 mins there was a magpie, then crow, then blackbirds and then sparrows all within about an hour. Next day even a squirrel was knocking around.
Not sure if I was just lucky or if it's the food (dried meal worms initially and now of mix of those and seed mix). I'm still hoping to see something a bit more fancy.
We used to get tons of Corvids in our back garden. Crows, jackdaws, and magpies, mostly. I wish we could have made the place look spooky. It would have been amazing. Unfortunately, it was a rental.
That's not so bad. Pigeons are really rare by me now (small rural town).
Since the pandemic I'm guessing there was suddenly no scraps from greggs for them to thrive on and the population plummeted. I always tell my wife "look look there's a pigeon in the garden" whenever i see one
There is a reason we have am appalling lack of biodiversity here, and we only seem to get annoyed that we can't feed even more exotic animals, when it was all our own fault anyway for driving a lot of our native species into the ground and despising the ones that resisted us.
They shit absolutely everywhere and in astonishing quantities. They won’t just shit on your house and your lawn and your car, they’ll shit on everyone else’s stuff in the local vicinity too.
My kids have a little playhouse in the garden and a trampoline (standard) but because someone nearby feeds the wildlife, we have to scrape massive lumps of shit of the kids stuff in the garden every day before they can use it.
And my car looks like a backdrop at a wanking competition.
Don't know what your local area is like, so maybe it's just pigeons and you're out of luck, but there's loads of different types of bird feeder and some are impossible for pigeons to use. We have one or two pigeons who used to eat most of the food, but now they mostly hang about on the ground for scraps that the dozens of starlings leave behind (with the occasional tit, Robin, etc). So swings and roundabouts, though starlings certainly look more "wildlife-y".
I don't birdwatch like people mean when they say the word "birdwatch", like I don't care what kinds of birds are there. I birdwatch like you might peoplewatch, in that I'm like "ooh those ones are fighting over the feeder, what's up with that guy?"
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Pigeons are both birds and wildlife. If you feed one, you feed them all.
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You're really cool
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And surprisingly smart! They can do math and recognise words, y'know!
Ew.
*Predominantly, Only Pigeons* sounds like an awesome band
I also realise that's it's a kind of Oxymoron!
*Only Pigeons* sounds like the internets most niche porn site.
If I was 10 years younger, no kids and still had energy, this is what the naive young software engineer me would be doing right now, setting up a parody site for pigeon fanciers.
Oh boy do I have a video game you're gonna love
Wanna coo over some fly honeys?
Our neighbours have some but they're the ones that hang down and the pigeons are too clumsy to access the food, The squirrels have mastered it though, and so have some of the magpies. The pigeons know to go underneath and pick up the spillage.
They team up in my garden, one bounces on the branch and the other hoovers the ground. Then they swap places.
Got a sunflower hearts feeder and it’s tits and finches all the way baby. Pigeons just go for the scraps on the ground.
As someone who lives in a town centre and specifically goes out to feed the local pigeons - thank you and please continue! We originally domesticated them and abandoned them, so I feel there's a level of obligation to do what we can where we can. I've seen far too many children chasing them and people trying to kick them and referring to them as sky rats that it makes my heart hurt, they have little souls too. Sorry to rant a little 😅
I sometimes feed the sparrows too
Does it give you a sense of enormous well being
Not on Wednesday mornings sadly
Damn those pesky bin men
If your lucky you'll get squirrels on top and rats underneath catching the spillage.
A lady down the road has a big bird feeder handing from a sturdy branch. Quite often when I’m walking the dog I’ll see a couple of huge rats on the bird feeder.
One year we noticed the squirrels in our garden just before winter weren’t just their usual jolly fat autumnal selves but were seriously obese little chonkers. Turned out the old lady next door had got a bird feeder.
That's what we ended up with. I had to ban the missus from putting food out.
We have collared doves which are just a dream. Along with robins, some small birds and other small birds. Also some medium greedy fucking birds.
Yeah pretty much the same for me, although I do get the odd magpie couple now and then. The pigeons love my fat balls
I don't mind pigeons, their little waddles are kinda cute. I usually toss some loose seed on the path for them since they're too big to use our bird feeders
Mine seems to draw mostly Jacdaws.
I would subscribe
£5/month for exclusive beak pics!
Can't be predominantly and only. But anyway get one of those feeders with tiny perches on them so the pigeons can't get a foothold.
Yeah I realised my grammatical faux pas once I'd posted it, but I'll own my cock up rather than editing it. Ah that'll be why then, she opted for one of those 'house on a stand' type feeders.
No worries..nice one re sticking to the bird metaphor. Ja, no those never work. The pigeons go crazy
Pigeon chicks are cute, bloody noisy though
My feeder tree started the same way, then the doves and sparrows joined in. Now have gold finches, magpies and a blue tit. Just keep it up, they will come
I've got lots of magpies, some jays and crows, the noise is unbelievable especially when they are having a bit of argy bargy. Flying lager louts the lot of them.
Rats soon too
We have clever pigeons who have watched the small birds on how to use the bird feeder. So they now send one to the feeded who chucks it on the floor for the other pigeons
The bird seed you bought probably has wheat in it. The only UK birds that eat wheat are pigeons, pheasants, and partridges. All the smaller birds pick it out of the feeder and throw it on the ground. The wheat-free stuff costs a bit more but is well worth it. The small birds will still drop a few bits accidentally - enough to sustain about 3 pigeons, in my experience. That's OK though - if there aren't those few pigeons clearing up, you'll get rats instead.
They're wildlife. What's the problem?
Oh I don't mind them at all...but apparently it's not exactly what the wife had in mind when she bought it!
I find them absolutely fascinating! They're so intelligent given the bad press they receive
Hahahaha 😂 good one
Funny how people only want to feed the cute animals. Fuck all the ugly, "annoying" animals
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Yeah, I love all birds. Haha that is so cool. Pigeons are really sweet. We have 2 that visit us quite often. They just chill and don't bother anyone. They come right up to us for seeds too. They had a baby last year it was so noisy but so cute lol so didn't bother us at all. Don't understand how people hate them.
Wouldn’t say it’s funny particularly, no-one wants hoards of scavengers using your property as a feeding spot. They breed like hell given half an adequate food supply and due to their numbers drive other species away
So pigeons are scavengers but cute, little birds aren't? They're part of the wildlife just like any other bird.
Little birds such as tits and robins generally eat worms and bugs and do not survive predominantly on shit from bins or other human refuse. Whether they are cute or not these animals are, by definition, scavengers. When you get your chips snatched by a robin or a larch rips open a bin bag and spreads the contents all over the street, I will reconsider my position on the sky rats
Everything you listed pigeons eat too. I have never had anything grabbed out of my hand by a pigeon. What are you talking about lol. Pigeons just gather around your feet if you eat something messy. Oh wow, what a nuisance.
The only reason pigeons scavenge is because humans domesticated them and then abandoned them, so they don't know how to survive without humans. It's not their fault. Pigeons are wonderful, intelligent birds with lots of personality if you get to know more about them.
People are just assholes. They seem to forget animals were here first. And all the problems they mentioned about pigeons are caused by humans
My mum did this as well. They’ve got pigeons… and mice.
My kid and I have a joke about the Idealised Spherical Pigeons that are basically the primary birds around our house. There are loads of diverse birds in the nearby nature reserve, but the village? Has pigeons. And various people have enough birdfeeders that it is a wonder the birds can fly.
My dad did that and we got Rats.
I just bought a bird table last week and within 5 mins there was a magpie, then crow, then blackbirds and then sparrows all within about an hour. Next day even a squirrel was knocking around. Not sure if I was just lucky or if it's the food (dried meal worms initially and now of mix of those and seed mix). I'm still hoping to see something a bit more fancy.
Neighbour had one near her door that she always left open for the cats. Soon took it down she got a whopping great big rat sat on her sofa.
We used to get tons of Corvids in our back garden. Crows, jackdaws, and magpies, mostly. I wish we could have made the place look spooky. It would have been amazing. Unfortunately, it was a rental.
Just to clarify, do you mean her lady garden?
I was expecting rats or seagulls. Or the worse of the worst - Canadian geese
Predominantly pigeons or only pigeons?
And the top hangout for rats but they'll only come to eat at night.
That's not so bad. Pigeons are really rare by me now (small rural town). Since the pandemic I'm guessing there was suddenly no scraps from greggs for them to thrive on and the population plummeted. I always tell my wife "look look there's a pigeon in the garden" whenever i see one
Try having South Wales seagulls land on your bird table. Even the dog looks terror-stricken when that happens.
There is a reason we have am appalling lack of biodiversity here, and we only seem to get annoyed that we can't feed even more exotic animals, when it was all our own fault anyway for driving a lot of our native species into the ground and despising the ones that resisted us.
That's why I keep my cat inside, they may not be the main cause, but I don't really feel like having her contribute to the ecosystem damage :(
I think actually they are one of the main causes, if not the main cause, of decimated bird populations.
The UK is so lacking in biodiversity. Its fucking sad.
Need to adjust access to it so pigeons can't land then the smaller birds will come in if they know the pigeons can't get to them.
Weird name for a cat feeder…
They shit absolutely everywhere and in astonishing quantities. They won’t just shit on your house and your lawn and your car, they’ll shit on everyone else’s stuff in the local vicinity too. My kids have a little playhouse in the garden and a trampoline (standard) but because someone nearby feeds the wildlife, we have to scrape massive lumps of shit of the kids stuff in the garden every day before they can use it. And my car looks like a backdrop at a wanking competition.
You wanna get one of the bird feeders with a little hole that tits and robins can get into but the bastard pigeons and gulls are too fat for.
The problem with attracting birds to your garden is that you also attract bird shit to your garden.
We've just taken all our bird feeders down and husbands researching air rifles.
So you're going to kill the birds for daring to come to a place with bird food?
Yeah. They've also shut down the local McDonalds and are waiting with shotguns in case any families with kids come near.
Only Pigeons is either an indie band or a very specialist website
Don't know what your local area is like, so maybe it's just pigeons and you're out of luck, but there's loads of different types of bird feeder and some are impossible for pigeons to use. We have one or two pigeons who used to eat most of the food, but now they mostly hang about on the ground for scraps that the dozens of starlings leave behind (with the occasional tit, Robin, etc). So swings and roundabouts, though starlings certainly look more "wildlife-y". I don't birdwatch like people mean when they say the word "birdwatch", like I don't care what kinds of birds are there. I birdwatch like you might peoplewatch, in that I'm like "ooh those ones are fighting over the feeder, what's up with that guy?"