Feeding pigeons

[dilligaf]

Why do people, especially outside city supermarkets insist on feeding pigeons. Outside our local Tesco there are two main culprits, an elderly woman and Asian gentleman (also elderly) who arrive with a bag of breadcrumbs which are strewn across the pavement to feed the colony of pigeons that have taken home on the roof opposite to await their daily feeding.

Surely they would not contemplate throwing food to encourage rats out of the drains to feed?

What is the difference and why do they do it?

[RATTER15]

What these people don't realise is its due to these people that we have pigeon problems in our towns and cities also bread is not good for pigeons and ultimately these pigeons will be culled.

[whyme]

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag, tuppence ,tuppence , tuppence a bag. Sorry couldnt resist!!

[allotment10]

lol @ whyme!, but seriously these people do cause a lot of problems, we had to pay to have our gas fire disconnected and refitted due to pigeons falling down the chimney, (on two occasions) and then had to pay for a fitting in the end to cover the chimney to stop the pigeons falling down it! we had an elderly lady who came every day and chucked all her scraps down for the birds just over the road from our houses, so obviously the pigeons sat on our roofs waiting for the food, when i went over to her and explained the problems she was causing for the home owners i just got a mouthful of abuse and told in no uncertain terms to mind my own f*g business! (And i thought old ladies were sweet!) but since then she seems to have found somewhere else to feed them as we've not seen her come back, and the pigeons have been diminishing in numbers as well! so perhaps it would be best if you had a word with them, but, BE PREPARED! they can get quite nasty :-)

[fatmanlevi04]

Well, poor you lets hope you never grow old or lonely or have an ounce of decency about you to think of anything or anybody but yourself, coooooo

[allotment10]

and coooo 2 U 2 fatman :-p

[The Big Gill]

I'm not keen on pigeons either, but as fatman says, the reason some older people feed them is because they get some simple pleasure out of it without having to look after a pet in their home.
Having said that, I did once see an old lady who, after scattering the bread amongst the pigeons, bent down and picked up a pigeon and put it in her shopping trolley. She zipped it up and trundled off home with it...

[allotment10]

yes, i appreciate that big gill, i know a lot of them are lonely , i don't mind anybody feeding the birds but it would make more sense for them to feed them on a park or something, anyway, wonder what she wanted with that pigeon ?....pie perhaps!, doesn't bear thinking about!!.. :-)

[commoner]

LOL.That old Lady wasn't feeding the pigeons Big Gill.......she was putting down BAIT to catch her dinner.........pigeon pie with mushy peas.............WHOAAR.....gorgeous. <G>

...Despite there being instant fines in my hometown for feeding them, there are still one or two who insist on dropping whole bagfuls of corn, bread etc in the town centre evey day..........They come in their droves, like flying rats when they see these particular people coming...........they do make an awful mess.

[allotment10]

LMSO @ commoner.., you could be right! wonder if she had chips with it ? pigeon curry & chips, hmmm, ...

[shaneystar2]

The feral pigeon is descended from the rock dove whose natural habitat is cliffs and caves. Large buildings and statues offer pigeons roosting sites which closely resemble these. This, combined with their resourcefulness, tendency to scavenge and lack of territorial aggression has led to large flocks of pigeons living in close proximity with people.

We shouldn't feed them really ..we are not doing them any favours

http://www.bexley.gov.uk/service/publicprotect ion/pigeons.html
I know it's a local council website but could apply to anywhere overrun with them.
We have flocks of them in our market place and together with the seagulls they make eating a bag of chips a dodgy business !!

[allotment10]

hope you read the above fatman!

[fatmanlevi04]

Allotmentman Shoo go away, shoo oops sorry for reminding you, vermin ass hole

[allotment10]

grow up!