by Brent Eades
James Jamison, one of the folks who look after the historic clock atop the Old Post Office on Almonte’s Mill Street, sends me this:
Greetings d’Almontes,
We’ve been having a lot of problems with the clock stopping lately, always at something:45 or something:15. Seems all the birds are ganging up and roosting on the hands, which is too much for the old mechanism to overcome. It’s nice and warm against the face and an excellent spot.
If you see that it’s stopped, or have any ideas on how to discourage the birds, please don’t hesitate to let me know at james@jamisonrepair.ca or 620-0488.
It’s hard to be sure, but in the photo above from James there seem to be about 12 birds perched on that conveniently horizontal clock arm. I did some Googling on the average weight of a rock pigeon (or common pigeon or rock dove, which these birds are) and came up with an average weight per bird of 350 grams.
Then I did some quick calculations:
- 12 pigeons X 350 grams each = 4200 grams
- 4200 grams = 9.2 pounds
- Times four clock faces = 36.8 pounds
Which is a lot of pigeon weighing down those sensitive and historic clock hands.
So: how to humanely deter these birds from stopping time in Amonte? Suggestions welcome.
