I have been on some vessels where we have had different birds on the ship and there has been some debate as what to do with them. The most common one to land is racing pigeons but sometimes you get other wild ones. Some people say you are not meant to feed or water the racing pigeons as they will stay with the ship and die, other people say you are meant to feed them and water them. Sometimes they can be very tame and friendly so it is a lot of people’s natural instinct to try and feed and water them, but that might do more harm than good. Also if we are meant to feed them with food commonly found on vessel what do we feed them with? I have read online that brown rice is a great food for birds (cooked of course because if it is raw it will swell inside them and harm them) but brown rice is not common on vessels, mostly its just normal white rice. I think you are also meant to give them water out of a hard plastic container, I have seen some people give them water out of polystyrene cups and they start eating the cup which I imagine is not good for them. If racing pigeons hang around the vessel could it be a good option to catch them and keep them contained until the ship goes to port and call the relevant wildlife rescue organisation to come and get them? Someone told me a story they heard of someone who used to do that, they would put all the wild bird that were hanging around the vessel into a big cage in the forecastle store and then hand them over to wildlife experts when the ship got to shore. I have tried googling the correct procedure of what to do with bird that land on ship at sea but there doesn’t seem to be many resources giving relevant advice.

Strangely enough, there is an ornithologist on the boards who can probably help. Hopefully @Birdsonboats will show up and set the record straight.

Had a Cuban racing pigeon land on our tug off the keys a few weeks ago. He enjoyed sunflower seeds and plenty of water but I got him to leave in Houston. He was very thin when he landed but looked a lot better when he left.

I guess it depends on if they are edible or not…

If I was smort, I would have put a link to the thread Birdsonboats started. [image] Have you had birds land on your vessel while offshore? Scuttlebutt Hi everyone, I’m an ornithologist who’s currently looking into the role that vessels play for the displacement of birds. It’s a well-known fact among ornithologists that exhausted birds take breaks on vessels, sometimes leading to their displacement over thousands of kilometers, occasionally even crossing entire oceans, but the extent of this is not known. I hope to start some kind of citizen science project with seafarers. Therefore, I am looking here for any seafarers A) who have stories a…

He was escaping oppression. . .

I’ve had a bird do the opposite. We had a cockatoo on one ship as a pet. His/her name was Captain Cookatoo (the ship had ENDEAVOUR in the name, so there’s the connection) and had one wing clipped and got to wander around from time to time out of the cage. Naturally, an occasion to spread and flap wings is welcomed after a stint in lockdown, but … you can guess what happened. The flight was short and then wet. The alarm went out and the ship tuned about. A man overboard exercise has that additional urgency when a life is at stake. The Captain now resides ashore thankfully after he started chewing the Charthouse cabling. Oh, I did have a swarm of crickets land onboard some distance offshore. Not birds but winged nevertheless. No welcome aboard treatment for them. The final survivors chirped for days after secreting themselves in every conceivable niche - before the insurrection was … crushed.

[image] I’ve seen fishermen use the device above for gulls. I will put water and crackers out for small birds that end up offshore. Can’t remember if I saw any pigeons in Alaska. If there were, they’d get taken out by Peregrin falcons.

[image] Jughead: I did have a swarm of crickets land onboard some distance offshore. On 3 different occasions I had swarms of bees come aboard in the Bay of Campeche off of the state of Tabasco. The first 2 times were 2 weeks a part from each other when the galley crew forgot to close the food storage container & sacks of sugar were completely covered with thousands of bees. We had to smoke them out both times. The steward was an idiot to let it happen twice. We thought about tossing the bag of sugar overboard but no one wanted to touch it. The 3rd time was a few years later on another vessel when a couple hundred bees flew into the bridge when a door was left open offshore. The captain & chief mate had 2 crew members fully sleeved out with face masks on walking around the bridge with 5gal shopvacs.

Back in the 80s, I recall being in the Gulf on our way to (or from) San Juan. One night, out of the blue, there seemed to be millions of crickets and coming out of places on deck like they had been living there in hiding, like something out of a horror film. . . and the next day? Nothing. . .and I never saw anything like that again. . .

[image] cmakin: …One night, out of the blue, there seemed to be millions of crickets and coming out of places on deck like they had been living there in hiding… With rather rare, strong eastern wind systems, it is proved that huge swarms of ‘crickets’ (billions) cross the Atlantic from the northern or southern borders of the Sahara. These could be the same wind systems that occasionally transport Saharan dust to the Caribbean islands. “In 1988, swarms originating in North Africa crossed the Atlantic Ocean and made it successfully to the Caribbean and South America. “ >>> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/14/876002404/locusts-are-a-plague-of-biblical-scope-in-2020-why-and-what-are-they-exactly?t=1625230768671

What is the correct thing to do if birds land on your ship?

Professional Mariner Forum

Tugboater203 July 1, 2021, 11:41am 5

If I was smort, I would have put a link to the thread Birdsonboats started.

R a the bird

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What is the correct thing to do if birds land on your ship?

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