Southpinellas: Bird haven is headache to neighbors

Bird haven is headache to neighbors

A Vina Del Mar woman says she has stopped feeding pigeons in her back yard. Others disagree.

By AMY WIMMER

ST. PETE BEACH -- Neighbors complain that Maria Speel feeds the birds -- the sea gulls, the herons, the egrets, but worst of all, the pigeons -- at all hours of the day.

The pigeons flock to her home on Vina Del Mar by the hundreds, ruining her neighbors' backyard barbecues and leaving droppings on docks, boats, patios and swimming pools.

"They get fed on one side of the channel, and then they come and do their droppings on the other side of the channel," said Sherry Travis, who lives across the water from Speel.

Last week, the city's special master, who makes rulings on city code enforcement issues, forbade Speel from continuing to feed the birds. Speel insists she has stopped feeding the pigeons and now only looks after the sea birds that frequent her yard, but the neighbors dispute that. "This is not a one-time basis of a lady feeding a few birds," said Clay Travis, Sherry Travis' husband. "This is an ongoing feeding frenzy."

Carol Gorbett, a community service officer for the city of St. Pete Beach, first warned Speel in April. Speel contends that the birds come to her because they feel safe in her yard and knows she will care for them.

Speel has repeatedly given sick and injured birds to the Seabird Sanctuary, she said.

It's not the first time a pigeon feeder has run afoul of the city. In 1996, after a South Pasadena couple made a habit of feeding oodles of pigeons on Upham Beach, the City Commission passed an ordinance prohibiting pigeon feeding in public places.

The couple then went so far as to lure pigeons into their hatchback and dart them off to South Pasadena, where they tried to train the pigeons to come for feeding instead.

Unlike the couple who fed the birds on Upham Beach, Speel fed them in her own back yard in Vina Del Mar. But neighbors complained that their neighborhood had become a bird haven, with fowl, particularly pigeons, congregating for free food.

The city accused her of creating a neighborhood nuisance.

The birds perch on telephone wires and on neighbors' roofs, Speel's opponents contend. One man in the neighborhood said he had difficulty selling his house because of the pigeon problem, though Speel insists her birds had nothing to do with it.

At the special master hearing, neighbors showed video footage of birds congregating in the neighborhood, swooping into Speel's yard for food, then returning to the rooftops.

John Elias, the city's special master, told Speel she must stop feeding the birds if she wants to avoid a fine from the city.

"I won't be happy about it, but I'll do it," said Speel, who continually insisted that she did not feed the pigeons anymore, only the larger sea birds.

But the pigeons still come to the neighborhood. "I would guess, just as a lay person, that the way you stop (attracting) birds is to stop feeding them," Elias said.