Farm fun time part 1, Arundel MD
back to the field! after months of waiting for permits, one failed attempt and about a bajillion emails, it was time to head off to my Maryland collecting site. Kinder Farm park was the site in question, a small county park with a few 4-H club animals, and of course, a big flock of resident pigeons.
We were also armed with a new trap, our simplest yet, the noose-carpet. The noose carpet is a piece of hardware cloth covered in snares. this trap is placed either where the target bird walks, or is known to perch. Then, then the bird moves its feet, they become tangled.
Carrying our new-fangled traps, we scouted out where the pigeons like to feed. Of anywhere on the farm, the pigeons decided to start their day by pecking at astroturf on a football field across the road from the farm proper. Now, I had no clue why a pigeon would prefer to peck at astroturf vs a grassy lawn, but that's what they wanted to do, so we would have to wait for them to come back.
a few minutes later, I went into the sheep/pig barn to find a small flock of pigeons scratching through the hay. realizing that I might be able to use my noose carpets on the barn's wooden beams, I needed to get into the sheep stall. of course, this presented no issue, even with a locked gate.
When I was younger, I spent a good amount of time perfecting my fence-jumping skills. In elementary school, I was the fence jumping QUEEN, I could get over wooden backyard fences without batting an eye, chain links with ease and vinyls....
Ok, I could never get over vinyl fences, but that's beside the point.
However, the gate separating me from the sheep pen was only a steel-tube corral gate, which is basically a ladder, so it was one of the easiest fences I've ever jumped.
once I tied up my noose carpets up, the chaos began. flocks of pigeons landed on the ground and where chased away by hordes of small children and where spooked by hawks. My dad ended up catching two with the bow-net, but the net deployed in err, and was snagged on plants. all pigeons except two escaped.
we didn't catch any other pigeons that day.
Even without any more pigeons, I had to collect feather and fecal samples as well as move noose-carptets, this meant climbing over yet more fences. here is a sample of the types:
plywood corral: it's a corral gate with a big piece of plywood attached to one side, easy to get in, literally impossible to get out. I had to jump into a goat pen with this type of gate because one of my noose carpets had fallen from the sheep side of the barn to the single goat stall. because goats climb, the internal side of the gate had to be unclimbable. it's ok because I was able to climb out using the wall-mounted hay holder as a hand and foothold and heave myself over the stall divider.
to get samples, I needed to get over a variety of traditional three-beam wood fences. these are easy on there own, but can get more difficult with modifications. sometimes they are covered in guard wire, a wide gauge wire mesh used to keep animals from getting through the gaps of the fence. these only allow for stable footholds on one side, so they are a bit tricky, especially coming down.
three-beams with especially narrow beams are hard too, as they buckle under the weight of a stepping foot. when guard wire is added, it's even trickier.
chain links are still pretty easy, although I remember them as being far simpler when I was in elementary school.
day two was cold, so chilly in fact that it began to snow while we were monitoring our traps. it was windy too, so the pigeons were extra shy. it's hard to fly in high winds, so feeding on the ground is dangerous. as the physics of takeoff is complicated, a gust of wind could topple a bird as it's trying to escape a predator, so when winds are high, birds are more nervous about feeding on the ground.
just like the day before, I jumped into the sheep pen to lay me traps. I got distracted by a pair of black vultures sitting on the edge of the barn, and got head-butted by a sheep,
right into a wheelbarrow.
I got out of there fast.
seeing the commotion, the pigeons moved over to the pig stalls. these where not teacup piglets, but massive, nearly riding- sized old sows.
I've heard pigs can be friendly and doglike before, but I wasn't taking any chances with these big girls, so no traps where set around them we tried setting traps in the goat stalls too, but the goats had other plans and treated the traps like fun new toys.
So there was no trapping in the goat stalls either.
due to the winds, we only caught one pigeon on day two, snagged on a noose carpet in the sheep stall.
later in that day, we learned why the pigeons where so shy the day before as well, most of the workers as the park hate pigeons, as pigeon droppings pile up in the animal barns. because of this, some pigeon "removal " efforts had been taking place in the past, using baited traps. the pigeons must have learned by now that there was no such thing as a free lunch, and began to feed in less productive but safer areas like the astroturf.
Sometimes, it's hard to remember that pigeons are mostly considered pests. this is particularly true when I've spent time watching them and seeing them raise chicks, form pair bonds and narrowly escape predators together. Like any other scientific specimens, I shouldn't anthropomorphise too much or get too attached to the pigeons I study, but knowing that the next time the bird a I caught goes into a trap expecting food will kill it is more than a little unsettling.
I know pigeons are invasive and all, and I understand the reason for wanting them gone, but I feel like in this case, violence might not be the answer. "pigeon proofing" a livestock barn isn't that difficult, and had already been completed in certain sections of the park's cattle barn.
don't get me wrong, I have no problem hunting, but a rule in my family goes "if you kill it, you need to eat it" or, in other cases use it in some way. Animals trapped as pests are rarely eaten, and instead thrown away. pigeon is actually very much edible, and young pigeon (squab) meat can retail for $25 per pound raw and at restaurants can cost up to $42 per plate.
even if not eaten by humans, pigeons are a valuable food source for birds of prey. urban peregrine falcons feed almost solely on pigeons, and at kinder, I found piles of pigeon feathers on the ground as well as a thriving red shouldered hawk population. if nothing else, leaving pigeons to feed local hawks would help keep these birds around, and especially important as the northern subspecies of the red-shouldered hawk is in decline.
ok, my rant is over now.
p.s
these chickens (polish top-hat breed) kept me going through the slow parts of the day....honestly LOOK at these funky little pheasants, and tell me they wouldn't improve your day by just a little bit.
1 comments