Pigeons

The city Zoning Board has ruled that a Hamilton man cannot keep his pigeon coops in his back yard, but the man says he will appeal the ruling."I'm going to take it to court, if necessary," says Ronald A. Wacker Jr. "I'll get a lawyer and appeal it. I'm going to stand up for my rights."The Zoning Board heard the case last week after some of Wacker's neighbors complained that his pedigreed racing pigeons are unsanitary. They challenged the issuance of the permit allowing Wacker to erect the coops.

In 2006, the Baltimore funk-jam band Pigeons Playing Ping Pong started from a modest and typical beginning: Two new friends - Greg Ormont and Jeremy Schon - playing acoustic guitar together in a University of Maryland dorm room. The duo took their songs to coffee shops and open-mic nights around campus, and a year later, added drummer Dan Schwartz and bassist Ben Carrey to complete the act.  Since then, Pigeons have lived on the road (Ormont said the group played 196 shows in 2013)

The pigeons dive and swoop and land on roofs. They also bombard the neighborhood with droppings.That's how Melvin Munk sees it, anyway. He and his neighbors in this quiet, attractive area of Hamilton are hoping the city will come to their rescue and rid the neighborhood of its "pigeon problem.""They're like Japanese Zeros," says Munk, a retired TV technician who has lived in his house on Edgar Terrace since 1949. "They bomb the driveway."Zeros are World War II fighter planes. Unlike the bombs the planes dropped, the bombs the pigeons drop land with a splat.

When the Bridge, the biggest band on Baltimore's jam scene, split up last Thanksgiving, live-music fans wondered who would fill the void. A year later, they may have an answer: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. The quartet of singer/guitarist Greg Ormont, guitarist/singer Jeremy Schon, bassist/singer Ben Carrey and drummer/singer Dan Schwartz has slowly built a large following through three monthlong residencies at the 8x10. Live, the band stretches out songs well past the 10-minute mark, and its members nimble musicianship and stage presence make for an entertaining show.

Ronald A. Wacker Jr., whose racing pigeons have prompted a city controversy, says his pigeons are no different from his neighbors' cats and dogs."They're family pets," he says.And Wacker, who lives in Hamilton, is fighting to keep his pets. Tomorrow, at a meeting of the city zoning board, he plans to argue to keep the two backyard coops that house his 30 pigeons.But some of Wacker's neighbors are upset that the pigeons have splattered their neighborhood with droppings.And Melvin Munk, Wacker's next-door neighbor in the 4800 block of Edgar Terrace, says he plans to present to the zoning board a petition signed by members of 20 households in the neighborhood objecting to the pigeon coops.

At Baltimore's new baseball stadium, the Orioles won't be the only birds. The bats won't all be Louisville Sluggers. And the wildlife won't be restricted to the $4 seats.Naturalists say the new ballpark is likely to shelter a variety of urban fauna. It may be a home where some big brown bats roam, where a few nighthawks, sparrows, ring-billed gulls, crows, ravens, rats and house mice forage for bugs and pretzels.Maryland Stadium Authority officials are confident they can keep these critters under control.

Margaret McDevitt placed a pigeon in an experimental chamber, closed the glass front and shut off the overhead light before leaving and heading to a nearby room. There she flipped on a monitor to watch the bird. Squishy, the pigeon, waited for lights to come on in two circles on the side of the chamber. The bird then pecked at the green circle and was rewarded with food. "It sounds simple, but it's not," said McDevitt, an associate professor of psychology at McDaniel College. "You can't just tell the pigeons what to do. Working with pigeons is like working with infants.

Albert A. Mrozek, a retired federal worker who bred racing pigeons, died Jan. 12 of complications from diabetes at the Genesis Severna Park Center nursing home. The longtime Brooklyn Park resident was 81. Albert Anthony Mrozek, the son of a tugboat deckhand and a homemaker, was born at home on Ann Street in Fells Point. His family later moved to Brooklyn, and he graduated in 1949 from Southern High School. During his high school summers, he worked as a deckhand with Curtis Bay Towing Co., and as an apprentice at General Ship Repair and at Bethlehem Steel's Key Highway shipyard.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - It was meant to be a dignified tribute on Sept. 11: a flock of doves soaring majestically past Lower Manhattan's altered skyline. But they weren't doves, they were pigeons. And many of them couldn't fly. During the memorial service here, the birds plunged into the Hudson River, smacked into plate-glass windows of office buildings and crashed into the crowd. One perched atop the hard hat of a construction worker whose company had helped clear Ground Zero. Since the ceremony, animal welfare advocates and others have been trying to rescue the birds and roast the organizers.

Valiant in name. But Valiant in aim? Or effort? It's a "stiff upper beak" comedy about heroic British homing pigeons fending off Nazi falcons as they bravely carry messages from the French Resistance to the Allies on the eve of D-Day. It's a perfectly competent cartoon, if rarely a thing of beauty. It's occasionally funny -- so long as you get that whole "Never so few" Battle of Britain fighter-squadron milieu and Monty Python's famous skewering of it. Not that your average 5- to 10-year-old will.

Albert A. Mrozek, a retired federal worker who bred racing pigeons, died Jan. 12 of complications from diabetes at the Genesis Severna Park Center nursing home. The longtime Brooklyn Park resident was 81. Albert Anthony Mrozek, the son of a tugboat deckhand and a homemaker, was born at home on Ann Street in Fells Point. His family later moved to Brooklyn, and he graduated in 1949 from Southern High School. During his high school summers, he worked as a deckhand with Curtis Bay Towing Co., and as an apprentice at General Ship Repair and at Bethlehem Steel's Key Highway shipyard.

Another relatively solid episode of Fox's “Terra Nova” this week - the good episodes always seem to illicit emotions of both triumph and disappointment as I realize, “Darn, this show is really worth a crap.” Taylor and Jim are coming closer and closer to finding out the mole in Terra Nova. Except, it's not really a mole. Rather, it's more of a prehistoric micro-chip-equipped dragonfly transmitting messages back to Sixer-Leader Mira. Now, I don't know too much about dragonflies except that they creep me out - I have vivid memories of youth softball spent in right field, watching dragonflies (really hideous creatures when you think about it)

This very dry, steely Riesling exemplifies the Australian style with this varietal. It's a flavorful white wine with hints of sweet pea, herbs, white pepper and slate. Its touch of severity is offset by a bracing intensity and long finish. Fine value, with a crew cap. — Michael Dresser 2008 Cat Among the Pigeons Riesling From: Barossa Valley, Australia Price: $13 Serve with: White-fleshed fish, shellfish

From the start, it's been hard to peg Sugar Ray. When the SoCal five-piece formed in the early 1990s, audiences thought they were a straight-up hard-rock party band. Then they released the summery acoustic single "Fly," a smash hit that rocketed them to platinum status. Listeners and critics were quick to label Sugar Ray one-hit wonders. But the band's next album had two more hit singles, "Every Morning" and "Someday," and went triple-platinum. Now, audiences look at 41-year-old lead singer Mark McGrath, with his six-pack abs and frost-tipped hair, and think he's an empty-headed frontman disillusioned by his band's success.

1. Any commercial that references The Godfather has got to rate high. The Audi spot goes to a mansion's bedroom with a man waking up to pull back the blankets and find sheets covered in oil and the torn-off grill of a car. He unleashes a blood-curdling scream. Not sure I'm buying an Audi because of it, but entertaining. 2. Feel that beat of "What Is Love." Look at the bobblehead dolls, then the people's heads bobbing as they start to doze off. Until they drink Diet Pepsi Max. Then everyone is in the old Saturday Night Live sketch, bobbing along energetically to the Haddaway hit. SNL alum Chris Kattan shows up at the end to tell everybody to stop it. 3. Peanuts, get your peanuts.

Last month, my nephew Christopher Monteferrante had a blast feeding the pigeons on his first day in Venice in Piazza San Marco. He was torn between unbridled joy and fear of the hungry pigeons waiting to be fed in Venice's most popular square. Frank Monteferrante, Ellicott City The Sun welcomes submissions for "My Best Shot." Photos should be accompanied by a description of when and where you took the picture and your name, address and phone number. Submissions cannot be individually acknowledged or returned, and upon submission become the property of The Sun. Write to: Travel Department, The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21278, or e-mail Travel@baltsun.

The chorus of cooing next door is hardly what bothers Marilyn Bachman about her neighbor's pet pigeons. It's the stench. And the rats. The Glen Burnie resident has told Anne Arundel County officials in no uncertain terms that she wants the coops gone. But the pigeons' owners, Constantin and Elena Stroe, say they have rights, too. "People have to take care of their own yards and not look in other neighbor's backyards," Elena Stroe said. "We try to respect the law, and we have the same rights as those complaining."

Attention, city residents: You may no longer keep your mongoose at home. The Baltimore City Health Department finalized regulations yesterday regarding which exotic pets and farm animals are permitted in homes. No bears, bats, ostriches, kangaroos, monkeys or mongooses as city pets. And Baltimore's avid pigeon racers will be able to keep up to 125 pigeons each - a concession from city health officials after many fanciers squawked at an early proposal to limit ownership to 50. "In the city, we are trying to keep people from having exotic animals that they are really not trained or educated to maintain," said Olivia Farrow, Baltimore's assistant commissioner for environmental health.

The chorus of cooing next door is hardly what bothers Marilyn Bachman about her neighbor's pet pigeons. It's the stench. And the rats. The Glen Burnie resident has told Anne Arundel County officials in no uncertain terms that she wants the coops gone. But the pigeons' owners, Constantin and Elena Stroe, say they have rights, too. "People have to take care of their own yards and not look in other neighbor's backyards," Elena Stroe said. "We try to respect the law, and we have the same rights as those complaining."

Attention, city residents: You may no longer keep your mongoose at home. The Baltimore City Health Department finalized regulations yesterday regarding which exotic pets and farm animals are permitted in homes. No bears, bats, ostriches, kangaroos, monkeys or mongooses as city pets. And Baltimore's avid pigeon racers will be able to keep up to 125 pigeons each - a concession from city health officials after many fanciers squawked at an early proposal to limit ownership to 50. "In the city, we are trying to keep people from having exotic animals that they are really not trained or educated to maintain," said Olivia Farrow, Baltimore's assistant commissioner for environmental health.