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[Music]
You can take the man out of the countryside, but you can not take the countryside out of
the man. Roy Lupton has taken a deep breath, had his jabs, and left the Garden of England
to go up to the Big Smoke for a dirty job.
We are in central London at the moment. We are not allowed to disclose our location.
There is a hell of a problem that they have got with pigeons. And as you will see in a
minute they are defecating over everything. Over the windows, over the pipework, over
the pavements. For a shopping centre, especially the food outlets, it is not overly hygienic.
It is a contract which has to be done in combination with working the birds to scare the pigeons
and shooting a few of the pigeons as well. So we are here tonight to try and reduce the
population a little bit. But when you are used to walking around with grass under your
feet, coming to central London is a bit of a shock to the system.
London is under aerial assault from pigeons and parts of it are covered in guano: carparks,
walkways and shopping centres like this one. The thing is, Londoners are so used to it,
they have stopped noticing. But the birds are a real problem and by using hawks one
week and air rifles the next, Roy is trying to keep his avian foes in check.
Now it is very, very odd isn't it. Right in the middle of an urban environment here, so
we have got high raised flats and shopping centres and what ever else surrounding us.
And obviously when we are taking the shots, you are making sure that you have got a solid
backstop as you would with any other shooting. So we are shooting into the wall making sure
the pellets don't go a rye anywhere. And again we are only using sub 12ftlb air rifles. Obviously
we are here, pigeon coming in. Here to do a pest control job and so we are trying to
get as many as we can as quickly as we can. And down he goes and you can see that the
pigeons are so used to seeing people that even after a shot, 30 seconds later more pigeons
are coming in so it is literally stand on the same point and they will just come in
land again and away you go. So my neck is craning all over the place as there are pigeons
all around us. It is just absolutely mad.
Just like in any shooting situation Roy has to be absolutely sure about shot placement.
He also needs to find the most stable position to take that shot. In London, tree trunks
become sign posts or concrete pillars. Five-bar gates become brick walls or wheelie bins.
We are using the same techniques for shooting as we would in any other situation and the
same rules apply and obviously in a situation like this safety is paramount and you have
got to make sure you can account for where every single pellet is going to end up. But
yes, it is exactly the same. You are getting a good solid rest, you are looking for the
shot and you are trying to take the safest shot possible. Normally when I am shooting
pigeons I try to go for head shots. When we have been doing it tonight I have been doing
a lot of chest shots. Just because you have obviously got a little bit more margin for
error and the birds are dropping down so as long as you are shooting through the vitals,
the spine or what ever else, they are dropping nicely. Exactly the same you have got to have
the same amount of respect for the animals that you are shooting and accounting for.
You just have to make sure that the shots you are taking are as efficient as possible.
Now you may notice Roy's pest controller mate is blurred out. The poor lad is so frightened
of attacks by anti-hunters, he specially asked to be left out of this film.
Back to the story, instead of merging into his natural environment like a chameleon Roy
is wearing his clubbing gear and sporting an Air Arms airgun for tonight's antics. It
attracts attention from the police and shoppers alike.
High are you alright?
What are you doing?
We are doing pest control.
OK.
A young woman questions Roy's parentage and makes further suggestions about what he could
do with himself, but he has heard it all before.
I think it is the same whenever you come into a position of conflict regarding shooting
or field sports or what ever else. As long as you are polite and try and explain your
side of it, really that is all you can do and hope that they understand. And really
not take too much umbridge with it. Very interesting.
A few distractions do not deter the man from finding his ferals and the bird bag is building.
They are being knocked off their perches from every angle, sometimes in front of passers-by.
We know his urban transformation is almost complete when locals start asking him for
directions.
Yeah, you are fine. No problem.
They think you are a traffic warden.
I know.
The birds find sanctuary everywhere. This centre has spent thousands on netting and
big spikes, but the ferals are not easy to keep on top of. Some are even using safety
glass to keep out of reach of Roy's pellets.
You can see here some of the mess and damage that has been caused. Especially in an environment
like this where people are walking through. They will pick up the mess etc on their feet.
And up here you can see where the pigeons have been nesting and it is a complete health
hazard up in the rafters with all the messy material and years of detritus which has built
up in there as well. It is a haven for muck and disease. So again another high light of
why this work has got to be done.
The guys both enjoy using the hawk for jobs like this - keeping the pigeons on their toes
or what remains of their toes. Now and again we chance it and throw a light across the
buildings to see if the birds will stay put. Some do and they don't see what's coming.
It's all thanks to a new torch Roy has been given to play with.
This has been absolutely invaluable tonight. This is night master by Tack Light and we
have been sent it to have a go with. And we were going to try it out on the foxes. It
is meant to throw out the same sort of beam as a conventional lamp would that you plug
in and it is just a little hand held torch, absolutely superb. The beam on it is brilliant.
Obviously it is very odd it has got a square beam there so you can see I think it must
have a filament in there. From what we have seen so far I am looking forward to having
a play with the foxes. Right let us go and find some more pigeons.
It's been a quite extraordinary evening - walking the streets of London with rifles, popping
off ferals.
As we leave our superhero to his work, we can all sleep safer knowing he is making London
a cleaner, better, even safer place. Just shine the bat-signal into the night sky or,
better still, give Roy a ring,and he will come and clean up pigeons round your shopping
centre too.