Newbury Racecourse is a racecourse located in the civil parish of Greenham, next to the town of Newbury, in Berkshire, England. It has courses for flat racing and over jumps. It hosts one of Britain’s 31 Group 1 flat races, the Lockinge Stakes. Queen Elizabeth II spent her 86th birthday at Newbury Racecourse watching the races from the royal box, where two of her horses competed. Newbury Racecourse was the site of a major project to build luxury apartments in the grounds of this famous landmark. After the first phase was completed, a pigeon problem occurred when the birds began roosting in the roof gardens, leaving droppings on the balcony and walkways under the structure. Other passive methods were used to try to tackle the problem, but to no avail. As soon as the work was completed, the pigeons rearranged themselves in the new structure and used it as a roost and nest – pigeons particularly like ledges and sheltered areas that offer a good view of potential predators, so these buildings were almost a perfect habitat – much to the disapproval of the new owners of the apartments.
In this case it was important to provide a solution that required little or no maintenance, was unobtrusive but effective and, most importantly, was done while maintaining the building’s prestigious image. Pigeons used the building as a courtship area, attracting quite a few birds during the day, between 30 and 50 or so flocking at any one time. There were no nests, but there was a lot of droppings on the balcony of the penthouse below, in two apartment blocks. After cleaning up, ByeBirds were placed on the edges of the roof and now no birds use the area day or night. The flock has completely abandoned the site.
