Oh glabjous joy!
I know why all the ex-squabs are showing up: they are looking for the will! Someone should inherit the balcony. 
Thanks for keeping up the thread, Sam!
We put another flower box out on the balcony yesterday morning (Saturday morning), but we haven’t seen any pigeons stop by since then. 
The Dalmation actually stayed here on Thursday night, over on the rail. Or he did until I tried changing the water. He’s extra skittish, and even though I tried to move slowly and carefully, he flew off. Pigeons don’t like flying at night. The couple of times I inadvertently frightened Little Pidgee enough to make her fly away at night, she always came back, because she had eggs to rpotect. The Dalmation stayed wherever he went to.
Marley’s eggs should be hatching in just a few days.
Sadly, I think not. The eggs are still there, but we haven’t seen any sign of the parents in days. We’re keeping an eye out for them and put out some more crackers, but we don’t know for sure how long the eggs have been left unattended. It’s probably been a few days at least. We’re keeping a sharper eye out for the parents but I think it’s probably too late to do anything.
There’s no way to know for sure what happened, but I’m wondering if perhaps the eggs just didn’t hatch for some reason, and the parents just abandoned the nest. We noticed the nest two weeks ago so it’s possible they had been there for a while before that. Something also could have happened to the parents - we have a few pictures but we can’t even be positive we saw one pigeon on the nest or two. We’ll keep watching but we don’t have much hope. We had a very sad moment about this last night, since we were very much looking forward to having a pigeon family outside the window. It’s hard not to feel a little abandoned. 
If the pigeons don’t come back soon we’ll dispose of the eggs respectfully and invest in a bird feeder so we have some avian company.
Damn. It’s becoming hard times for pigeons.
Yeah, if the eggs don’t hatch after a while, the parents will give up. Stick an empty flowerpot out there. From the Pigeon Talk board, I’ve learned so many others got their first pigeons when they left one out on the balcony, just like what happened to us. Pigeons really seem to go for that.
Well, the new flower box has been garnering some interest. Yesterday morning (Saturday morning), Little Pidgee stopped by, and The Stranger was in the box; then later after they left, “Katie” (who we now know is male) and his mate were both in the box. Then we went out, and when we came home, there were signs of a major battle: Dirt from the box all over the place, the water dish scooted over, the little spirit house we have balanced between the two tree pots knocked down. And the Dalmation standing in the middle of it all, preening. I guess he won. And he’s out there right now, roosting on what’s come to be called Big Pidgee’s Rail, the spot he always liked, guarding his territory. We’ve heard him cooing a couple of times in the past, but we can’t tell if he has a mate yet; again, not sure what relation the feminine white one is.
But no nest-building in the box yet, but there has been another white, very feminine-looking pigeon stopping by with him, but we’re wondering if they may be siblings. She’s very pretty, snow white like the Dalmation but only a few speckles and a similar wing pattern, black lines along the edge. Will have to post photos soon. But rather than a mate-type situation, the Dalmation seems only to tolerate her as long as she dosn’t stay on “his side” of the balcony. The Dalmation has not tried staying here at night again since that one time late last month, but he does like to hang around all day, and the feminine one is usually with him, just on the other side of the balcony. (He does let her come over and get a drink of water, as long as she’s quick about it.)
I may be playing with fire here, Siam Sam, but what have you found is the best way to attract pigeons? Or do you have to do anything at all? There are a bunch of planters outside our window, so those will always be potential nests, but like I said we’ll hang up a bird feeder for pigeons and other locals as soon as we find a good one and figure out the right kind of seed.
An empty flowerpot or flower box is a good start. That seems to be their dream home. It’s how we got started inadvertently. Not only us, but also so many people on the Pigeon Talk board. Many there in London, Cape Town, all over the world seem to have innocently left an empty flowerpot outside, only to find pigeons laying eggs in it. For the flower box, we fill it maybe 2/3 full of soil, with a slight dip at one end; they invariably terraform it further themselves, though.
We only experimented with food the one time, to try to keep Little Pidgee here feeding Bob. There’s already an abundant supply of natural food in the neighborhood, and we didn’t want to attract a whole flock of pigeons. Of course, as we now know, the food did work to keep Little Pidgee, and The Stranger, here, but there was no feeding of poor little Bob.
But they did like the food a lot. What I bought at the store was Buddy-brand canary & finch food. Has seed and some natural millet and rinds in it. They really went for that. You can probably find something more pigeon-specific there in New York. We’ve only had pet shops in Bangkok in the past 10 or 15 years, and those tend to be geared towards Westerners (although the upper crust of Thai society all have to take their little foo-foo dogs to special groomers). There was a scant selection of birdseed in the Western-style supermarket I went to. Down in our deep South, which is Muslim-majority, there’s a big tradition of songbird contests, hundreds of them will be up high in their cages on a field, something that takes place all over Malaysia and Singapore, too, and comes from there, so I could probably find more specialty food down there. Although maybe not for pigeons, now that I think of it. But in Bangkok, the birdfood supply is limited. I know some people on the Pigeon Talk board simply use wild-bird seed. Ours seemed really to go for the canary & finch food, though.
I’ll bet if you stick a flower box out there with the food – are any of your planters empty? – it will be claimed as territory, and some male will keep others away. If it gets to be too much, you could always remove the food.
Keep some water out there for them, too. They really appreciate that.
Good luck! 
The Dalmatian, whom we’ve pretty much decided to call Henry, hangs around for a large part of each day. In the flower box, on the Big Pidgee Rail, in the “living room.” Seems to be guarding his territory.
We have a little birdseed left over from the experiment with Little Pidgee and so put a little out for him. But like Little Pidgee at first, he didn’t recognize it as food and so ignored it. However, Little Pidgee and The Stranger, who must be monitoring the balcony, sure recognized it, and they kept trying to fly in to eat it. This caused Henry to have a hissy fit, and he’d puff up, dance around, make threatening noises and finally chase them off. Then he would fly straight after them if they didn’t go far enough away, like a little attack pigeon! After a couple of times of this, we removed the food, because we could see this was going to be nothing but trouble. Still keep water out there, though.
Although Henry’s clearly an adult, we think maybe he’s still young. He does not seem to have a mate. That pretty white pigeon has not come around again lately, but they didn’t seem to be mates anyway. Possibly siblings.
I’ll load some photos of Henry sometime this week. He’s really pretty.
I thought of you when I saw this video… very clever… watch until the end! THose things look huge!
I’m loading that YouTube video now, but my Internet connection is slow, so it will take awhile even though it’s only a couple of minutes long.
Meanwhile, here are the promised photos of The Dalmation, aka Henry, taken between August 14 and today (“today” being Tuesday, September 8 even though it’s after 1:30am of the 9th now):
Henry and temple. Maybe you can’t see him all that well, but I like the background.
This one is better. You can really see his spots there.
And here, you can see his wing pattern. This is, of course, his right wing. The funny thing is he’s not quite symmetrical; the pattern on the left wing is just a little less intricate than the pattern on the right wing.
Henry and The Lady. He’s on the rail below, and she’s up on top.
A closer shot of her is here. She is very feminine-looking, sleek and elegant. But Henry does not seem very interested in her. Indeed, we think they may be siblings. Both are white, and she does have a few black spots. We’ve not seen her for almost a week now.
And a close-up of Henry.
Henry inspects the flower box. This was the day after the Big Battle while we were away, and we’d not cleaned up yet. You can see the little spirit house knocked down on the left.
A three-quarters view. More of that nice right-wing pattern.
And one more.
I’ve been invited to start posting on the Pij ‘n’ Angels website, which actually has a separate forum just for balcony pigeons. Man, there really is something for everyone on the Internet, isn’t there?
I probably will, too, post on there. That will make two pigeon boards I’ll be on. Maybe I should change my name to Pigeon Pete. 
But you’re not going to abandon us are you? ::sniff::
What? Never!
Haha! Finally saw that.
Friday morning here, and last night I sprinkled some birdfood in the flower box and on the floor next to it. I looked out about 8am this morning, and sure enough, there’s Henry sitting in the box again. (He really likes the flower box.) He’s gone off somewhere now, but I saw him eating the food on the floor and in the box.
My idea is to have food down that only he can see. If I put out a container, other pigeons, such as The Stranger, will swoop in, and a fight will ensue. I’m not happy about denying food to poor Little Pidgee, though.
Have not seen The Lady for a week. Henry seems not to have a mate at all. I hope he finds one and brings her “home” here. Wonder where he sleeps at night.
I’ve been told on the Pigeon Talk board that Henry is an example of a Blue Grizzle and that these are rare.
Very cool. Good luck attracting a new family!
After posting the above yesterday, I went to take a shower. When I came out, there’d been another fight. Dirt from the flower box everywhere and no pidgees in sight. (But Henry was back later.) I don’t think the fight was over food, because Henry had pretty much picked the area clean by that point. No, it was about possession of the prized flower box. Man, I wish pigeons had cash; then we’d be able to charge them rent for what appears to be a very prized piece of real estate.
Nothing much happening on the pidgee front. That fight aftermath last Friday was the last signs of any other pigeons. Now I sprinkle food onto the dirt in the flower box every day. Other pigeons won’t notice it, but Henry knows it’s there. He’ll come, eat, drink water, eat some more, lounge around a bit. Sometimes for most of the day, but he always leaves to sleep somewhere else at night. But this is clearly his daytime hangout now, and we’re really hoping he finds a mate and builds a nest.
We feel a little guilty about never having provided food for Big Pidgee, but keeping him here was never a problem. He decided on our place and that was that; we probably could not have made him leave if we’d wanted to, and again there’s good hunting in the neighborhood for a pigeon. With Henry, we’re trying to convince him to stay.
Have you considered offering free HBO to sweeten the deal?