What's the problem with pigeons? Honestly asking.

Pigeons do not have a good rep: https://www.audubon.org/news/the-origins-our-misguided-hatre...

Interesting article! Didn't know that the sentiment is relatively recent.

I always die a little hearing the flying rat thing. I get that they can be really annoying, waking you up, trying to lay eggs everywhere. But—having helped to care for many injured, sick, and unwell animals, pigeons _and_ fancy rats among them—I can't help but to feel sorry for how they are treated.

If you like listening to podcasts, I'd recommend the following episode on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TlXi3_Fyyg

‘If it became necessary immediately to discard every line and method of communications used on the front, except one, and it were left to me to select that one method, I should unhesitatingly choose the pigeons’, wrote Major General Fowler, Chief of Signals and Communications of the British Army, after the First World War.

On today's podcast Tom and Dominic are joined by Gordon Corera, the BBC's Security Correspondent and author of 'Operation Columba: The Secret Pigeon Service', to discuss the often under-appreciated role of pigeons throughout the course of history.

In dense urban environments, masses of corrosive pigeon shit everywhere, with feathers sticking to it. Unsanitary.

In my French Parisian city of Courbevoie, pigeon houses where eggs are shaken to sterilize them, and re-introducing magpies solved the problem - the now sparser population is fine. Magpies and crows devastate pigeon nests.

Also, the expansion of greenery led to shifting the pigeon population from mostly columba livia, which nests on rocks (and therefore on buildings) to mostly columba palumbus - which nests in vegetation and thus doesn't make a habit of shitting on buildings.

Pigeons aren't a problem. Killing off pigeon predators is a problem.

Notre Dame's falcons sure are well nourished !

WOOHOOOO WOOOHOOO WOOOHHHOOO at 4am for 4 months every day

My household had to change our sleeping schedule because of these stupid rats. In Europe they are both protected and invasive at the same time.

Sadly the common European dove is being more and more scarce, following the same path than the migratory pigeon. The Eurasian collared dove or Turkish dove is invasive, but spreading naturally. They don't overlap.

As they suffer predation by magpies, the more spikes that humans put in the nest, the more attractive became to nest on it, it seems.

I haven't seen a European turtle dove in Poland in my life. Never once.

Neither me. Is a shy Mediterranean species, usually rare in the North but in decline also in the South. Heavily hunted while in migration.

Haha, had the same problem. Don't even mind the doves, would gladly build them a place to live myself. But the early morning wake up alarm they create is too much.

Magpies make a hell of a racket first thing in the morning, especially if they think you might give them snacks to shut up (they love nuts, in case you're wondering). I quite like listening to the chatter but it's not what you want after a late night.

And my magpies attack the finches. They've killed 3 finches so far. I've given the finches a place to escape where the magpies can't fit but most of them haven't figured it out.

The magpies also try to attack my Uinta Chipmunks but they are too fast for the magpies. I put the food between my firewood logs where the chipmunks can fit and the magpies can not. Funny thing is the magpies can't stop talking so I know when they are up to no good.