Help please, I am being terrorised by a pigeon

[ReginaGeorgeous]

Our lawn was looking a bit sorry for itself so we re-seeded it a couple of weekends ago. It hasn't taken and for the last six days a big greedy pigeon has been living in my garden treating the lawn like an all you can eat buffet. All advice online is to remove the food source but clearly its not practical to. Said pigeon is a brazen fucker and is ignoring all attempts to scare it off.

This pigeon belongs to somebody as it has a ring around each leg, but neither DH or I can get close enough to it to get any details from the rings. The main issue is that it is shitting everywhere and I have a four year old who wants to play outside.

What can I do? Can the council help? Anybody had a similar problem?

Aim the hose at it?

Dress up as a large owl and swoop majestically in its direction.

a big greedy pigeon has been living in my garden treating the lawn like an all you can eat buffet

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

What FiremanKing said. There's nothing else for it.
Make sure you film it and post it here. For ummm...research purposes. You never know when it might happen. You'd want us to all be prepared, wouldn't you?

@auditangel we did aim the hose at it a few times. All that happened was that it flew up and sat on the roof until we went back indoors and then resumed its feast.

A couple of old CDs on string, tired to the washing line will keep him away. The movement/light scares them off it also scares the nice birds

Where are u op? I can bring these....

A neighbour of mine has old CDs hanging from string blinding everyone who drives past, around her lawn to scare off birds, presume that’s what they are for as I haven’t actually asked them.

Give it an alternative food source - put bird seed (and water) somewhere else.

Do you know anyone who you can borrow some binoculars from, to see the ring?

Advice here:
www.rpra.org/stray-reporting/

@FiremanKing got an owl suit I can borrow??

@Easterbunnynearlyhere I'd love that, I'm in Worcestershire

Sprinkler?

Spray paint it.
An Mnetter did that a few years ago.

When we re seeded our garden we put some polythene down over the top, mainly to stop our dogs digging at it. The grass has grown back really well.

Blunderbuss. It's the logical choice. Pepper its feathery little arse with gunshot.

PS This post is not endorsed by the RSPB or the Historical Weapons Guild, which I've just made up.

like someone else has said put out something else for it to eat, can you catch it in a fishing net or throw a towel over it when its busy scoffing and try and look at the ring. it might just be stopping over for a few days in its travels.

This thread really made me laugh!

Sorry OP, hope the pigeon fucks off for you soon enough

At least it's not a pair of seagulls, last year a baby gull got blown out of the nest too young, it spent the next few weeks living on ours and our neighbours front gardens so we had to check where it was before we went out or risk getting bombed by the parents!

I just came on to say spray paint it but someone beat me to it. It'll learn him though

I feel for you, OP. Round here the problem is seagulls. I punched one once (mostly by accident, and not proud of this).

@10PercentMoreBanana 😂

incogneto - I don't endorse the sucker-punching of avian creatures, but this one took my salami and cream cheese sandwich out of my hand.

Can you get a motion activated hose spray end? Get the bugger wet. At least you've only got the one pigeon. When I reseeded the lawn I ended up with an entire flock.

We had this problem - I stuck some short canes dotted around in the earth and wound thread between them like a big tangled cats cradle. Stops the pigeons and other birds walking around.

Sprinkler left on? Will help the grass seed and keep the pigeon away.