Pigeons and Owls

Architects have always designed great buildings, from very comfortable ones to those intended to enthrall and awe the onlooker. But often, they have consistently ignored the ecology of the area, the environment which ought to have got its due and the local wildlife which tends to adapt to these buildings and make it their home too. It is said that a little after the Viceregal Lodge, what is now Rashtrapathi Bhavan, was designed and brought into use, they had to keep on employ some twenty five people to shoo away the pigeons!

There are two birds which residents of multi-storeyed buildings in Bangalore are especially taking an objection to: The Barn Owl and the Blue Rock Pigeon, the latter with its domestic and feral variants. The pigeons often breed on window ledges and balconies while the owls tend to make their nests in holes and larger ledges found on these buildings. Both call, the former with its harsh hisses and screeches, usually in the night, and the latter with its soft coo-ing almost all through the day. And these calls and habits are what people tend to dislike with these birds.

Both the Barn Owl, Tyto alba,  and the Blue Rock Pigeon, Columba livia, have been quite successful species globally, being able to increase their distribution quite effectively with the spread of human beings worldwide. The Barn Owl and Blue Rock Pigeon populations in Bangalore have been going up due to both the increase in feeding opportunities and the number of roosts available. Owls feed quite extensively on rats, and our garbage generation and dumping has really encouraged the latter. Pigeons feed on small seeds and grain, and some feel that feeding them by providing feed, has encouraged their populations to rise. So, we also need to take these in to account when we put up buildings!

To solve this problem, we need wildlife aware and wildlife friendly architecture. We need out architects to design better facades so that these buildings do not work like wildlife traps, drawing birds in to get them into distress. Whether it is our old temples with their nocturnal bats and owls, or decades old architecture, like many of  the buildings in the older layouts, or the ultra modern high rise, high priced flats, we need to avoid making places for wildlife where we are sure we do not want them, and not try to destroy or disturb them once they are in. Any remedial measure is just that, a palliative which does not really provide a cure. We certainly need better designing to be in place for effective avoidance of such problems.

 

[2008. Published in the Deccan Chronicle]