# Wild Pigeons - South Africa



## Tanja (Dec 12, 2013)

I don't know if anyone will be able to help me or refer me to someone that can.

A couple of months ago I started feeding wild pigeons on my balcony (I stay in an apartment on the 2nd floor and there's a Church next to me with trees where they stay).

They got so used to me feeding them that I'm sure they know the time I get home from work as they wait on the other apartment's roofs. They are now about 30 to 50 give and take that come and an odd "mossie" or two and one yellow "vinkie" (the latter two types of birds I'm not quite sure what they called in English (I think "Sparrow" is the right word).

I am so devastated as I am moving at the end of the month to a place with my own garden and realised that there will be no one to look after my wild pigeons that I have "adopted".

I don't even want to imagine that they all might die now as there will no longer be food for them. I need reassurance that they will be o.k. to feed for themselves again. 

I am so very upset with myself to have interfered with nature - it started off with one little pigeon that came and ate the food that my 2 canaries messed when I put them outside weekends when I am at home and I just thought I'll help them with food and started to buy wild bird seed every month.

I need an honest answer on what will happen to them now or maybe even a solution to help them feed for themselves again as I have 2 weeks left before I leave on the 28th of December. I feed them every night and what's left over they eat in the morning.

Can you maybe give me advise or refer me? It is summer time in South Africa with rain almost every afternoon.


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## Marina B (May 5, 2011)

Where did they get food before you started feeding them? I think they will just go back to what they used to do before you started feeding them: spending the whole day foraging for food. They won't do it while you're feeding them, why spend all that energy when they know food will be available when you come home.

Maybe you must only start feeding them for the next week every second day and the last week every third day.

I do the same thing where I live, they recognize my car when I'm a block away from home and then fly on to the neighbour's roof and sit there waiting for their food. When I go away for a couple of days and they don't get fed, there's usually much less birds waiting for their food. They quickly loose interest until a easy meal comes along again.

I'm sure the birds will be fine and that you will have lots of feathered friends in your new garden.


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## Tanja (Dec 12, 2013)

Dear Marina,

Thank you so much for your response. I'll definitely try to feed them every second day from Monday (just spoil them a bit this weekend still) and the following week only every third day until I leave on Saturday the 28th (it's going to be hard but I just have to).

I just needed confirmation that they'll be ok. They'll be in my memories forever along with the pics I took of them and I'm going to miss them terribly but like you said I'll get my new feathered friends in my own garden now with my 2 little Angels with Wings (my beautiful canaries).

Kindest regards,
Tanja


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