Relative length of Fordham spikes to Fordham eyass
First off my apologies for those who visited the Symposium while it had disappeared. Blogger ate it for a while, then poof, it was back.
AND KEEP YOUR OPINIONS AND FEED BACK COMING!
THE MORE BRAINS WE HAVE WORKING ON THIS THE MORE CHANCE WE HAVE OF CRACKING THE PROBLEM.
First up an email from reader Ed Teller--
I've always thought that the open space below the metal cradle is an obvious no-brainer problem. Dale's letter about the Venturi Effect makes good sense to me. I'm voting for something that stops up the holes in the cradle. For that matter how about filling in the whole area between the decoration below and the cradle above?
Ed
(THOUGHTS ON HOW TO DO THIS, ANYONE? KEEP IN MIND THAT PREVIOUSLY ONE OF THE ISSUES TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT WAS THAT NOTHNG SHOULD TOUCH THE LANDMARK BUILDINGS CORNICE D.B.)
From Eleanor Tauber who often contributes her marvelous photos to the blog like the independent Frick Duckling above.
Donna, here’s my weigh-in, which includes Blakeman’s words:-
I culled this from two of Blakeman’s emails to you. In another which I can’t find, he suggested how this could easily be done. This is the way I’d like things to go, and would hope that the NYC Audubon Society would step in to help instigate a follow-through, which is what happened before.
Eleanor Tauber
WHAT BLAKEMAN WROTE:In the pre-cradle nests, the eggs might have also rested on the spikes, but they were fully enclosed with insulating nest lining all the way down to the cornice surface. None of the spikes' surface then was directly exposed to the late winter air. With the cradle, cold air continuously surrounds the open metal base of the elevated cradle and the attached pigeon spikes. Any conducted heat easily escapes downward along the spikes, through the insulating nest lining, out to the cold air beneath. A reduction of just one or two degrees (eggs are incubated at about 100 degrees F) will kill the young embryo.
Therefore, a photo of the nest in the fall, after the lining material has weathered away a bit, may show that the prongs in the center of the nest are bent over 45 degrees or more. If this is so, the eggs still rested on the prongs, but instead of on the tiny tips, they rested on the bent-over sides of the prongs, exposing them to larger contact areas of heat-conducting metal.
Again, the spikes need to be snipped off at their bases, or thoroughly smashed down flat.
And another vote for spike mashing from reader Karen Anne Kolling--
I don't know... but it certainly seems that those spikes would both conduct cold and prevent the eggs from being rolled. So, like John says, it would be a simple first step to mash them down.
Rose and Hawkeye's nest at Fordham. Obviously successful as there are eyasses sheltering from the sun in the corner.
Spikes on ledge with nest. Look at how high the nest is. It also looks like it 's possible that the bowl itself may not be positioned above the spikes
More details on the Fordham pigeon spikes from Chris Lyons, who reports on Hawkeye and Rose at Fordham.
(Some folks question whether the spikes currently attached to the cradle truly are the original spikes that were the base for Pale Male's nest. They believe that new longer model spikes, similar to those behind Pale Male's head in the previous post, for whatever reason, were used instead.)
From Chris--
In the case of the nest at Fordham, I don't believe the spikes are attached to wood, but are simply nailed or riveted to the stone or masonry surface of the pediment. But it's a very narrow strip, and it's out at the very edge of the broad horizontal cornice.
Very ineffective in repelling pigeons, if you ask me. But when Hawkeye and Rose began laying down sticks, these spikes worked very well in terms of securing them in place, while not coming into contact with the eggs in any way, because the eggs were laid in the center of the nest, and the spikes were out at the edge. And of course, this indirectly turned out to be a very effective way of repelling pigeons from that ledge, but they still nest all over Collins Hall. Overall, there are fewer pigeons on the campus, though.
In the case of the Fordham nest, the sticks are sitting directly on the cornice, and the spikes are out at the very edge, and probably not affecting the eggs at all.
Chris Lyons
The Symposium Wish List-
1. Photos of Pale Male's nest pre-cradle
2. An engineer with know-how in heat transfer willing to look into the heat loss issues in the theories for the love of Pale Male and Co.
Donegal Browne
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