Birds & Pigeons near you

Birds look for sheltered, elevated spots close to food, and houses offer plenty of them. Health Canada notes that pigeons tend to breed and roost in groups, favouring flat roofs, ledges and rooftop air conditioners. These are the usual trouble spots.

Environment and Climate Change Canada explains that, under the Migratory Birds Regulations, 2022, it is prohibited to damage, destroy, disturb or remove a migratory bird nest when it contains a live bird or viable egg. Empty nests of most species may be removed without notification or a permit. The exception is Schedule 1, which lists 18 species, such as the great blue heron and the pileated woodpecker, whose nests stay protected year-round until they have gone unoccupied long enough to be deemed abandoned.

Not every bird is covered. The Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 protects birds named in the Convention that are native or naturally occurring in Canada and occur here regularly. The rock pigeon, the familiar city pigeon, doesn't appear on ECCC's list of protected birds, and the families that include starlings and house sparrows are listed among those the Convention doesn't cover, though ECCC notes such birds may be protected under other laws, including provincial and territorial ones. Mourning doves and Eurasian collared-doves are on the protected list, so identify a nest before touching it.

In practice, a reputable company confirms the species first, leaves an active protected nest alone until the young have left, and schedules exclusion work for when nests are empty.

The goal is to make a spot unusable without harming the birds. Health Canada's pigeon advice includes screening off water sources, hanging fine netting across the front of a balcony, using bristling wires, also called porcupine wires, and removing roosting niches and sealing crevices, large openings and entrances in high areas. It notes that bird repellents and toxicants are generally sold for commercial or restricted use by qualified professionals.

Health Canada calls the amount of droppings pigeons produce the biggest problem they cause. It explains that histoplasmosis is a disease caused by a fungus that grows in pigeon droppings; most infections have no symptoms or appear as a mild respiratory illness, people with weakened immune systems are generally more at risk, and the disease can't be passed from person to person. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) adds that droppings from pigeons, starlings, blackbirds and bats support the fungus, and that people are infected by breathing in its spores.

Most birds nest in spring and summer, which is also when owners notice them. Because an active migratory bird nest can't be disturbed, the best time for exclusion is before nesting starts or after the young have left: covering vents, capping chimneys and netting balconies in fall or early spring keeps birds from settling in the first place.

Pigeons follow a different rhythm and can nest through much of the year, so on buildings with a pigeon problem the work is usually scheduled around the nests present at the time rather than the season.

In a condo, the balcony is often a common area reserved for one unit's use rather than private property, and the façade is managed by the condo board, called the syndicate of co-owners in Quebec. That changes who decides.