Taunton Bridge and the ongoing pigeon problem

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Three hundred grand well spent then. 

What about an every other day visit from a bird of prey and its handler. Say for a contract of ^25,000 a year? The news will soon trickle down through the pigeon community that the bridge is no longer a safe roosting/nesting place. 

12 years of pigeon free problems for the same cost as the netting. No need to close half the road either.

[vacmanfan]

Give one of the platform staff a gun?  MUCH cheaper!

[Chris from Nailsea]

That's an interesting idea: one member of staff with a 12 bore could 'kill two birds with one stone', so to speak - getting rid of the pigeons and shot blasting the rusty metalwork at the same time ... 

[vacmanfan]

Inbetween trains, of course!

[JayMac]

In between cars as well! Most of the shot would ricochet.

[vacmanfan]

That could be just written off as "collateral damage"...

Gentle persuasion for motorists to take the train instead.

[Wilf19]

Three hundred grand well spent then. 

What about an every other day visit from a bird of prey and its handler. Say for a contract of ^25,000 a year? The news will soon trickle down through the pigeon community that the bridge is no longer a safe roosting/nesting place. 

12 years of pigeon free problems for the same cost as the netting. No need to close half the road either.

I'll happily take our cat down there to do a bit of 'bird control' for ^25,000 a year, she's very good at it, too good as far as the household authorities are concerned. It would have the added bonus that she doesn't get to dump the gizzards on the hall floor for me to discover bare foot in the morning.

The article on the pigeons in the printed County Gazette this week talks about the netting being replaced with a mesh, so maybe they are considering something stronger to replace the netting? Cue traffics jams again while they sort it out  Time to start cycling to the station again.