Subject: [Tweeters] Band-tailed pigeons - affected at all by Rock Pigeons?
Date: Mar 28 22:53:16 2007
From: monte merrick - montemerrick at speakeasy.net


thats pretty interesting, about the blue elderberries - i'm only mildly
familiar with the native plants(except the big ticket items like the
trailing blackberries and those maples with leaves the size of dinner
plates) here at my house there was a flock of band-tailed pigeons (16)
hanging around for the first week of spring - they really stuckto the
big trees it seemed to me -

is blue elderberrry likely to grow on the san juan or gulf islands? -
here on lummi there's an awful lot of red elderberry, and on the north
end there is very little habitat that hasnt been substantially
altered, even though it is mostly woods - but a lot of stumps in the
woods of course, and there are some big trees, but a lot of cleared
fields, and strange overgrown areas with old truck parts and
miscellaneous junk in tangles of young dougfir and alders and himalayan
blackberries. i'd be thrilled to do what i can here to encourage native
birds -



monte merrick
lummi island washington
montemerrick at speakeasy.net
On 28 Mar 2007, , at 22:37, Stewart Wechsler wrote:

> Your point is well taken that the habitat of the Band-tailed and the
> Rock Pigeon do not overlap a lot.? This would indeed reduce the degree
> to which Rock Pigeons would spread diseases and parasites to
> Band-taileds.? That said, as they are related species there are likely
> to be a number of pathogenic organisms that Rock Pigeons support that
> would infect Band-taileds if the Band-taileds come into contact with
> the pathogenic/parasitic organisms.? With such large numbers of Rock
> Pigeons in the urban and substantial numbers in farm areas, I would
> assume that they may indeed support a large population of parasites
> and disease organisms.? I would then think it is not a question of
> whether Band-taileds are affected by Rock Pigeon borne pathogens, but
> how often and whether it is negligible or significant.? I am not
> suggesting that the Rock Pigeons are taking habitat?away from
> Band-taileds.
> ?
> My greater interest is to seek and analyze any potential limiting
> factors to Band-tail?populations and figure out which are the
> significant ones and what we might do to protect and?enhance
> Band-tailed habitat and help turn the declining trend around.? To that
> end I am currently propagating and planting Blue Elderberry shrubs in
> habitats where both Blue Elderberries would do well and where
> Band-tailed Pigeons occur.? How much one more food source would help
> the population, I don't know.? It may be that other factors than food
> availability are limiting the population and additional food sources
> may not help slow their decline or help bring them back.
> ?
> Stewart
> ?
> ?
> ?
> ?-----Original Message-----
> From: monte merrick??
>> ?
>> well stewart i cant think of anything except trichomoniasis that rock
>> pigeons, specifically, carry - and since band tailed pigeons and rock
>> pigeons dont really use the same habitat, and where they do, the
>> rural rock pigeon is much less likely to carry trich, which spreads
>> among crowded populations.
>>
>> unlike the european house sparrow, and the european starling, the
>> rock pigeon doesn't exactly take over habitat of native birds - more
>> like they adapt well in disturbed areas - such as cities - in fact,
>> if you really want to get a fight going suggest to the anti
>> non-native crowd that the rock pigeon is native to cities (show me
>> one without them)
>>
>> the band-tailed pigeon is a forest bird - certainly we can look
>> around and see that the threat to them, although great and probably
>> insurmountable, isnt the already much maligned rock pigeon.
>>
>>
>> take care
>>
>> monte merrick
>> lummi island washington
>> montemerrick at speakeasy.net
>> On 28 Mar 2007, , at 21:19, Stewart Wechsler wrote:
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