A Paucity of Pigeons Evicted By Order of the Court War Heroes Maligned The Rock Pigeon, or in more genteel terms, Rock Dove, is conspicuously scarce, if not absent altogether from its former milieu of crevices and cornices of the Cumberland County Courthouse. It fares no better on the austere ledges of the federal judiciary across the street. Moreover, it has largely disappeared from once overly populated bastions of its existence, such as Sappi Paper Mill and the attendant sidewalks and parks of the city beside the Presumpscot River. Why? “I can’t really say,” said Doug Hitchcox, a naturalist with the Maine Audubon Society. The birds, Hitchcox explained, are not indigenous to America. They were imported from Europe sometime in the 1600’s. The cliff dwelling denizens adapted well to the facades of urban landscape and fed prodigiously on scraps of food and agricultural grains. Unlike their cousin the Passenger Pigeon (a species now extinct due to over hunting and environmental changes), the Columba Livia (Rock Dove) populations have soared.. The bird described by some as “a rat with wings” is considered by many a nuisance. Besides its penchant for carpet bombing guano on unsuspecting pedestrians, houses, and automobiles, the pigeon can be a carrier of disease. Locally, it is evident that their numbers have diminished significantly in the past two decades. The flutter of wings along city sidewalks is silenced, and save for the last vestiges of a couple of dozen perched on the roof line of a medical building in Cumberland Mills, the bird seems to have disappeared from the landscape. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the winged European emigrant of the 1600’s has worn out its welcome and has become victim to draconian eviction and outright ornithological, ethnic cleansing. Spikes on window sills, such as are on the Cumberland County Courthouse, and an ordinance forbidding the random broadcasting of bird seed east of Congress Street are some of the tactics. The lowly Rock Pigeon, scavenger and bacterial dive bomber, is vested with the uncanny ability to find its way home. Equipped with some sort of biological GPS that scientist think is in part somehow linked to the earth’s magnetic field, it is also known as a homing or carrier pigeon. Domestication of the bird is thought to have taken place some five thousand years ago in ancient Egypt. In Westbrook the problem with pigeons was at its apex in the mid-eighties. A one paragraph note appearing in the American Journal on August 21, 1985, is entitled “Pigeons Arouse Halidon Hostility.” A resident of the neighborhood, once established as a “single-tax colony”, had undertaken to feed the birds. For, more than five years the winged inhabitants of the nearby paper mill took their meals in the blue-collar neighborhood of modest houses. As roofs deteriorated under the dung of the feathered interlopers, police were called to negotiate a tenuous peace between neighbors as solutions were sought. But, patience had run out for some, and vigilantes were taking matters into their own hands. Youthful militants armed with BB guns became the nemesis of the lady dubbed the “Bird Woman of Halidon.” Spike strips were placed on roof tops. The ever adaptable pigeon simply perched in the gutters. One neighbor, according to Susan Quinlan, attempted poisoning the birds with broken up Alka-Seltzer and Jack Daniels. Quinlan, being new to the neighborhood at the time, took on a more defensive posture, placing a blanket over the playpen of her eight month old daughter, saving the girl from the blitzkrieg of odiferous projectiles. “It was so bad,” she said. Mock owls were put in place, the owl being mortal enemy of the Rock Dove. Nature, too, took its course. Seagulls arrived and competed with the pigeons for the gratuitous vittles. While the seagulls were not welcomed with open arms, their habits were not as nearly as destructive of the more communal habits of the pigeon. Today, at what is now Sappi Fine Papers, with its open buildings and nooks and crannies, once home to a burgeoning pigeon population, is taking a more humane and high-tech approach. According to Tom Howard, Environmental Manager for the mill, electronic devices emitting sounds imitating birds of prey have proven effective. When birds of any description take up residence inside the mill live trapping is used. This may, however, be of little comfort to the winged squatters. Two falcons have also taken up residency near the mill. However, the local decrease in population cannot be easily explained away in places like Riverbank Park in Westbrook. The city has no eradication program according to the city’s code enforcement office. What maybe afoot, or on the wing as it were, is man’s affinity for the more colorful of Mallard Duck. Crumbs once consumed by pigeons are greedily gobbled up by an ever increasing population of waddling plumage, thus depriving the pigeon its once abundant sustenance. In no small measure the presence of marauding falcons and eagles, that from time to time inhabit the banks of the now nearly pristine Presumpscot River, comes into play. The reduction in the local population is significant when placed in the light of the bird’s reproduction capabilities. The female will lay two eggs after mating, and both partners will incubate for a period of eighteen days. The mating pair is likely to brood five times a year, sometimes producing eggs before the first pair has fledged some twenty-five days from hatching. Charles Darwin would have found a friend in the “bird lady of Halidon” for he was a pigeon fancier in an age when the breeding and keeping of pigeons was a past-time that transcended rather rigid class distinctions of the Victorian Era. Today, the chubby dove is thought to be a nuisance and under attack in statutes and on statues in many urban areas. If indicted as a species of mass-destruction worthy of annihilation, the Rock Pigeon with its congenital GPS, offers mitigating argument to its survival. On October 3, 1918, a battalion of the 77th Division was trapped behind enemy lines in the Battle of Argonne. Complicating its dilemma was a barrage of unrelenting “friendly fire.” Cher Ami (cherished friend) ,a carrier pigeon, was sent with a message to division command beseeching them to discontinue fire. She would be the third of such birds, the previous two killed by German gunfire. Despite being wounded in the breast and the loss of an eye the bird made the twenty-five mile flight. The shelling was stopped. Saved by division surgeons and fitted with a wood-carved prosthetic leg, she was sent back to the United States, a send off accomplished under the watchful eye of General Black-Jack Pershing himself. The winged hero was later awarded the French Croix de Guerre, as a testament to her valor.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:21:20 +0000
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