MDOSPREY - here's a follow up message regarding my posting yesterday. I did receive a few messages off line and had replied similar information to them. (If you would like to follow up directly with Jay, his email address is ) This method was new to us - does anyone know of similar tactics at other MD billboards? Yesterday, we observed the pigeons seemingly sitting right over the speaker looking down while it was playing - I think they've figured it out.

Marcy Stutzman
Russett, MD


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Pls convey to the MDOsprey readership my apologies for thinking there were peregrines nesting in a large billboard in front of the Laurel Shopping Center!  Turns out that the billboard owners employ recordings of peregrines to try to discourage pigeons--to no avail, it turns out.  While looking upward through a very narrow gap in the structure earlier today, I thought I was seeing (with naked eye!!) the tail end of a falcon...pointed wings and tail of a darkish nature, although I could not see clearly enough the buffy-white tip to the tail that would clinch the ID of a juvenile.  
 
Later birders found out the billboard owner has been using the recording for many years!  While the birders were at the billboard in the afternoon, a pedestrian mentioned that nobody wanted to be near that spot in the evening because the birds dived at them!  This evening just before the rains hit, we could only find one lone all-dark pigeon sitting inside the large space between the two billboards themselves.  The recordings were going off every 10 minutes or so for about 2 minutes each cycle.  Both an adult calling and what I presume to be a begging call could be heard.
 
Next time I will get my binocs and come back!!  ...who had heard billboard owners used recordings??  News to me!  Obviously, this has no affect on the local pigeons, etc.--have to back up the 'words with action!!'
 
Mea culpa!!
 
Cheers
 
Jay
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