Buster's to thank for a pigeon-free Fratton Park (courtesy of Portmouth News)

30th October 2009

If you regularly take a seat at Fratton Park then you have birds like Buster here to thank for keeping it clean.
The four-year-old Peregrine Cross Prairie Falcon is one of the birds responsible for keeping Pompey's stadium a pigeon-free zone.
Without Buster and his feathered friends, Pompey fans would find the stands of their beloved home ground covered in pigeon droppings.
Tim Lester uses trained falcons to deter pests like pigeons from nesting in the stadium's high beams.
He's worked at Fratton Park for around the last four years and was called in after pigeon poo – or guano to give it its proper name – became a problem.
'Portsmouth Football Club had a serious pigeon problem,' explains Tim.
'They'd tried other means of control and it wasn't working.
'We go there three times a month and scare the birds out from the stands.
'The situation is under control now but prior to that the directors' seats and fans' seats were getting covered in guano. Because there are health risks, the club was required to clean it.'

Bird of prey fan Tim, 50, has turned his hobby of caring for hawks into a job. Along with his wife Karen, 44, he runs the southern franchise of NBC Bird and Pest Solutions.
They and their staff of seven travel around the south using trained hawks to scare off and deter pigeons, seagulls and other winged pests.
Without the hawks, football stadiums like Fratton Park would be blighted by bird problems. Of course droppings are an inconvenient mess but they can also be an environmental health risk so need to be cleaned up quickly.
Tim also sends his birds up into the skies above Portsmouth's naval base five days a week to help keep seagulls and pigeons away.
The aim is not to kill the pests, rather to scare them away and then deter them from coming back again.
'It's absolutely natural,' says Tim.
'The pigeon's main predator in real life is a Peregrine Falcon and they are very sceptical about being around when one of those is present.
'Where they can, they avoid it.'
Tim's love of these powerful and majestic hawks stems all the way back to his teenage years.
As a 14-year-old lad growing up in Bedfordshire he found an injured Kestrel and nursed it back to health.
He became fascinated by these beautiful birds and three years later he bought a second Kestrel which had been bred in captivity.
It was around the same time as the popular Ken Loach film Kes was released and Tim's passion for the birds really flourished.
Eventually, he was able to release his first Kestrel back into the wild but he trained his other bird to hunt.
His interest in falconry always stayed with him but it wasn't until later in life that he found a way to combine his hobby with finding paid employment.
Tim began working for NBC Bird and Pest Solutions in 2000 and took the chance to take on his own franchise when the opportunity arose.
'I thought it would be a good opportunity to tie my hobby up with a living,' he explains.
'I love the job and I've got a passion for birds and it sort of grew from there.'
Tim now has around 20 birds and mainly uses a mix of Peregrine Falcons, Peregrine hybrids and Harris Hawks.
Karen helps train and look after the birds and they take great pride in making sure they are healthy, fit and well cared for.
All the birds are fitted with tracking devices so that if the worst should happen and they should fly off they can always be retrieved.
Using birds as a form of pest control is a tactical business, and Tim uses different birds depending on whether he wants to scare or deter.
Tim explains: 'We can clear a flock of 5,000 seagulls in two minutes and they will be gone. Come towards the end of the day and they might come back lower and lower because they haven't fed.
'Then we start to increase the pressure so at that point we might fly a bird to scare them.'
His passion for his work is clear to see – as his love for the birds he works for.
He adds: 'I love challenges and when you get into a place and you see a lot of pigeons there and you're not going to kill them but you are going to scare them away and as time goes on you see the difference it's having and your client comes up and says you've done a cracking job, then it's great.'

BIRDS OF PREY HAVE BEEN USED FOR CENTURIES BY MAN
While Tim Lester only uses his hawks to scare off or deter pigeons and gulls, the tradition of using birds of prey to hunt with dates back centuries.
While it's impossible to say exactly when the first trained bird of prey was used to hunt it is fair to say that falconry was already established in the middle and far east by 2000BC.
For example, Falcons used to be given as presents to Chinese princes of the Hiu dynasty around 2200BC. Experts think it likely that the Romans were taught falconry from the Greeks.
Falconry still continues to flourish in the Middle East and Asia to the present day, following for the most part the old tradition of trapping young hawks or falcons, hunting with them in winter and releasing then back into the wild in the spring.
However, falconry lost its popularity in Europe with the development of more efficient weapons, and by the late Eighteenth century was restricted to a few landowners.
Birds like the Peregrine Falcon are excellent hunters because they are fast and agile.

BUSINESS IS GROWING BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS
Tim Lester's work with falcons and hawks led to him being nominated for a national award recently.
Tim made it onto the shortlist to be named franchisee of the year but sadly did not take the title.
His business, which operates from Portsmouth, Southampton and Poole, has grown by between 20 and 40 per cent in the past seven years.
Around 60 per cent of his work involves using his falcons to scare off pigeons and seagulls but he and his staff are also employed to bird proof buildings using nets and spikes.
NBC Bird and Pest Solutions also offers specialist cleansing and cleaning services to get rid of guano, or bird poo.
Bird droppings carry many dangerous bacteria and present a serious health and safety hazard, plus they can block drains and damage rooftops.
Nesting gulls pose a particular problem because they can become very territorial and highly aggressive to nearby people.
But while falconry is Tim's real passion it's not just bird-related problems that he is employed to tackle.
He also offers other pest control services, ranging from one off rodent problems with rats and mice to getting rid of fleas, bed bug infestations, ants and wasp nests.
Tim stresses that the company prides itself on working in a way that won't have an adverse effect on other wildlife.

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