Pray perch elsewhere!

Just in case you have noticed – as l did – a man abseiling on the side of Bath Abbey, the l can now explain what he was doing.

In this city ‘plagued’ with gulls it seems pigeons can be a nuisance too.

Charles Curnock – Footprint Project Director for the Abbey – told me:

“It is the best method of dealing with pigeons.  The birds have taken – in the last couple of years – to roosting in some of the mullions in our windows and making their presence very obvious. 

The team first clean the guano off and then install spikes which come from a firm in Newton Abbot; the spikes are stuck in place with silicon.  

Slowly we are going round the Abbey dealing with the worst affected windows – and watching where the pigeons move to next!

We believe that this method is far less visually intrusive than either netting the whole window or installing Perspex sheeting – both of which have happened elsewhere.  

We also considered rounding up the pigeons and having them destroyed but we were assured that doing so would just enable their cousins to move in!”