Uncool

When I moved into this house, one of my first improvements was the addition of a swamp cooler on the second floor, tied into the upstairs ductwork.

If you live in a dry climate, a swamp cooler (or evaporative cooler) is a great alternative to air conditioning; it cools the air by blowing it through wet pads, much like hanging a damp towel in front of a fan. It uses much less electricity than AC and you don't have to seal up the house.

It does mean I have to climb into the attic twice a year to turn it on or off and rearrange the ducts, but that's not arduous.

This spring brought a little surprise, though.
Remember those darned pigeons that were nesting under the deck? And then building over the front door? Well, they thought they'd finally found a viable alternative: a fold in the cooler cover. The wind had flipped it over because I didn't tie it securely enough last fall.
When I got up on the ladder and flipped the cover back, Whooosh! a pigeon came shooting out. "Whoa!" I shouted, scaring the Sergeant. I had to reassure him I was OK.

I'm sure the pigeons would've thought it poetic if I'd fallen off the ladder.
I felt sorry, but not enough to leave the nest. Did you know that pigeons produce up to five sets of babies a year? This pair will just have to try again somewhere else.

Spiked

Oh, those poor, sad pigeons. Evicted from their cozy nest under the back deck, they decided to try again – this time on a tiny ledge over the front door. I took this photo with my cellphone a couple of nights ago.

There was a narrow slot there into which the pigeons started packing nesting material. Big enough for eggs, I guess, if not for a whole pigeon.
Enter the bird spikes. They're not all that sharp, but they are enough to deter a pigeon from landing.
Even psycho zombie pigeons, if the box is to be believed.
Now they keep fluttering around the front door, occasionally landing on the ledge with Walter the fake pigeon. But they don't stay there long. The glass on the back makes them too nervous.

Where will they try to build next? Stay tuned.

Angry birds

The duplex next door used to be Pigeon Central, until the owners got bird spikes installed in most of the abundant nooks and perches. So what happened? The pigeons moved over here.

Two pigeons in particular, who set up housekeeping in the space between the kitchen roof and the upstairs deck. There was a gap just large enough for them to squeeze through on one end. They built a nest and raised at least one set of babies (Peep! peep! peep! Flutter flutter!).

Finally the Sergeant hauled out his air compressor and blasted air in from the opposite side of the hole. Out popped the pigeons and on popped a piece of wood to block access.

Oy. The dramatic cooing and flapping that has ensued! They might have had eggs, but not babies (no peeping). Still, they hang about projecting pathos, bobbling across the deck, attempting to hover around the edges, looking for access. Pigeons are not built to hover, but they do their damnedest.

It almost makes feel sorry for them. Well, no, I do feel sorry for them. But they'll just have to rebuild somewhere else.

Architecture: You're doin' it wrong

I've posted before about my neighbors' problems with pigeons (and my own worry-free avian friend). Most of the time the pigeons like to hang out on top of the pillars by the front door. They build nests up there, too, and no amount of shooing chases them away for long. Nor do homemade bird spikes.

At nightfall, though, the pigeons seek out spots that are more secure for roosting (I'm guessing a raccoon could climb a pillar pretty easily). But they don't need to go far. In addition to the pillars, the builder thoughtfully included little decorative struts along the roof line, under the eaves. Ah, perfect!

It takes a fair amount of flapping and false tries for them to get up there, but once they're there, they settle in for a night of pooping and an early morning of cooing and burbling right outside the bedroom windows.

The neighbor on the other side invested in commercial bird spikes and borrowed a 28-foot ladder to get them up there. The cooing at 6 a.m. was driving him crazy.

Now new tenants are moving in on this side. Let's see how long it takes for them to go battty, too.

Befowled

This morning I saw a guy walking slowly down the sidewalk across the street. He walked up to the stop sign and started reaching up. "Oh no!" I thought. "Another tagger! God damn it!"

Then I realized he was cleaning the sign. A schools employee doing his part to wipe out graffiti. I went over and told him about my experience yesterday. He laughed and said, "Good for you! Thank you!"

Whew. I'm not so confident of my ability to scare off adult taggers.

Meanwhile, my next-door neighbors have a problem with another kind of urban eyesore: pigeons.
This place was just built last year, and I count it among the styles of monster duplexes I abhor. Not only is it ugly, it has all kinds of nooks and crannies where pigeons love to roost.
I turned the guy on the far side onto BirdSpikes.net, and the ones he installed seem to be doing the trick. The folks on this side, though, tried to make their own, with nails pushed through cardboard. As you can see, they're not making much of a difference.

As soon as the nests were removed, the persistent pigeons started fluttering down to gather more bedding. Flapflapflap down. flapflapflap up, all day long. There's pigeon poop all over the porch, and the constant coo-coo-cooing right outside the bedrooms drives the residents nuts.

Neighbor borrowed a ladder today to put in some more spikes.

As soon as he went back inside, the pigeons returned, scoping out the changes, finding new nooks and adjusting accordingly.

Conversely, there's only one place on my house where a pigeon could conceivably roost out of the weather, and that's already occupied by one mute and unmoving fellow who causes no problems at all.

It occurs to me that I never named him. Any suggestions?

Pigeon pursuit

There's a colony of pigeons that likes to hang out on the wires across the street to the south of my house. I took this photo of them from my dining room window in October.

Unlike then, today is sunny with a beautiful blue sky. I was on the front porch when suddenly a pigeon came hurtling over the front of it, swooped across the street to the schoolyard and slammed into the chain-link fence, recovered and flapped off again at high speed.

"What the ... ?!?" I just had time to think, before a peregrine falcon came hurtling after it in hot pursuit. The falcon turned neatly before it got to the fence, and they disappeared over some houses, the falcon only a few feet behind the pigeon.

Sorry pigeon, it looks like this will be your fate. (Don't click if you're squeamish.)

Poor impulse control

This is why I shouldn't go to rummage sales. But with all this pigeon talk lately, I couldn't resist. It just made me laugh. And I found the perfect place for it. We'll see how many people notice it.

Pigeon pie

Debra over at Cashmere Dreams posted about "pigeon prints" ... the rather horrifying result of failing to note that office window glass is a solid. I thought I'd share another example of an urban hazard for those rats with wings. This was taken by my friend Jenny out her office window downtown a few years ago.