To hate pigeons with every bone in my body?

[MargoLivebetter]

I live in a flat and we have outdoor space and the pigeons have moved in and I cannot get rid of them. I made a huge mistake in lockdown of letting two pigeons rear a baby pigeon on the deck. I hadn't realised that they'd laid an egg and when I found it, it had hatched and I couldn't bring myself to lob it over the balcony.

Oh what a price I have paid for my kindness / weakness. I now have a colony of the fuckers living on my decking. I am constantly on pigeon patrol collecting up their sad twig nests and endlessly lobbing their bloody eggs over the balcony. I have pigeon shit everywhere and on days I WFH, I listen to their endless mating noises.

I have tried everything (bar shooting them). I have vile sticky stuff all over the edges of things, which is supposed to deter them but doesn't. I had a bird startler noise thing, which they got used to after about 2 days. I have festooned the place in bird scarers and silvery things, all of which they completely ignore.

I am so fed up with them. Does anyone know a way of getting rid of these bastard birds?

Posting rubbish about things you know nothing about ? That's the backbone of MN 😂

It's understandable to be very frustrated with them when they're causing so many issues.

As already mentioned, we sadly have only other people to blame for this situation. Humans bred them for hundreds of years in our spaces, and that fell out of favour with the end of WW2 and growing tech. Tons of them were just released into the wild. The whole "rats with wings" thing comes from an American Park Commissioner in the late '60s. City pigeons often have no clue because it's not been that many generations since they were being cared for by humans and lost a lot of instincts. People continue to perpetuate it with dove releases for events - seven well trained, some do wander off and continue the cycle, going from symbol of peace and love to vermin with a shift in context.

Where I am, we have issues sometimes with wild parrots and similar birds that come from people having released pets decades ago and we have to deal with their offspring that are really annoying with literally no sense. Thankfully the UK doesn't have some of the issues with released pets causing a lot more damage as seen in parts of the US and other countries, like masses of boa constrictors taking up national parks...

Thanks to all those who have provided helpful tips. More spikes have just arrived, so I've just popped out to put them down. There are no active nests at the moment, because I am preventing any being constructed. I have 6 pairs of bloody pigeons attempting to nest. 12 birds shitting everywhere.

Several pest control companies coming around to quote and discuss what they could do. I've also involved the managing agents, as they are all over the block, not just my deck. There are huge piles of pigeon excrement by the front door and in various other communal areas, not to mention excrement down the walls too. Between the pigeons, the rats, the foxes and cats it is excrement central!

It’s the throwing the eggs which upsets me . A humane solution is needed .

Yanbu generally but lobbing eggs over the balcony is not on. We have pigeons nesting on our roof, don’t like them either. Sometimes an egg falls out onto our front drive and it makes a right mess. You could put them in your food waste bin, if they’re freshly laid they will just not develop.

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This is so sad. Pigeons saved lives during the war. They are simply trying to exist after we discarded them.