I'm in a constant battle with them. Have tried shiny streamers, plastic windmills, owl figures of all kinds, anything that would shimmy and shake in the wind, vaseline on the railings - nothing works. I'd like to try the plastic spikes, but it would cost a small fortune to put them out there - they'd have to be on top of the railing as well as on the ledge at the bottom of the baclony. My biggest problem with them (two in particular) is that they are forever trying to make babies on my terrace. Four eggs already this spring (picked up and destroyed, so now I can feel like a murderer). This particular couple has been around for years and I simply cannot get rid of them! My garden this year looks like crap, what with all the various protections I've got over my pots to give the plants a chance to grow - aside from pigeons, this year I got a ton of those pesky little starlings eating my plants. The bamboo skewers in the pots were pretty effective against the pigeons, but those starlings just swooped into the pot from the top and ripped up/out quite s few small plants. A BB gun might work - but I don't want to kill or injure them, just keep them away from my terrace. Sigh. PV

We fee our pigeons( 40 plus) a mixture of scratch and Pigeon feed. My Dad has a large loft of 200 plus pigeons and doves and he trains them all to eat bread. They are homing and racing pigeons and if they get lost most everyone has bread on hand. Dad also says You can usually tell a pigeons sex by looking at their vent. A frown or an upside down slit is a male bird and a smile or up right slit is a female bird. Good luck

Ohh, too cool! It's so exciting when a new bird shows up and you got a picture too! I just bought a subscription to the Birds of North AMerica website and this is what they say about Eurasion Collared-Doves.... One of many successful species introduced to the North American fauna in recent history, the Eurasian Collared-Dove was first released in the New World on New Providence, Bahamas, in the mid-1970s. Since its introduction, this dove has spread quickly across the North American continent. Reports of this bird continue at a rapid pace as the public is made aware of its presence Fairly uniformly distributed in Florida, Georgia, and along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Locally common in Alabama, Arkansas, sw. California, se. Colorado, and regions of Illinois, Kan-sas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, N. Carolina, Oklahoma, S. Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Reports of small numbers (1Â10 doves) from Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, N. Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, S. Dakota, and Wisconsin, as well as Saskatchewan, Canada. May occur in Mexico; all sw. Texas counties have reported observations. ... But not in Ohio :^( There diet consists of .... In North America, seeds and cereal grain offered from bird feeders and spilled from agriculture. Includes seeds of millet (Setaria spp.), sunflower (Helianthus spp.), milo (Sorghum spp.), wheat (Triticum spp.), and maize (Zea mays). Reported also to take spilled peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) from warehouse (Drennen 1997), fallen pecans (Carya illinoensis) crushed by automobiles on road (Steele 1998), crackers, and bread (CMR). Same male observed eating berries directly from Dahoon holly (Ilex cassine) every day for a week in early Aug 2001 in s. Florida (CMR). Flocks seen feeding on gravel in parking lots in Florida (CMR). And thanks Brenda, I haven't had any new birds in awhile so it was fun to research something new!

They are racing homers and have leg bands (first picture, right leg) and definitely somebody's lost pets. Maybe you can catch them and return them to their owner. You can find him using numbers from leg band. Here is a link that might be useful: Racing Homer