The volunteers saving Glasgow pigeons’ feet from litter

Once caught, the bird’s head is covered to keep it quiet.

“I have the sleeve of a T-shirt which I’ve cut off and put over them. Eight out of 10 pigeons are subdued by that. They are so vulnerable that they just lie there.”

As shown in videos on the group’s Facebook page, , externalthe strings are then carefully cut off by the volunteers.

She added: “It’s very satisfying, it’s a privilege to be able to catch a bird, and to tend to them. We are a bit like an organisation that does roadside rescue assistance. We kind of do that with the pigeons.

“We are helping the pigeons, helping the volunteers, but we are also engaging with the public.

“Initially people are sort of in awe that anyone would bother to help a creature that’s considered by some as flying rats, dirtying our streets.

“But we consider that they are here because humans took their ancestors from the wild.

“We used them for food, kept them in doocots, used them for messages, for eggs, for their flesh. We used them in the wars, for pigeon racing. But they are effectively discarded onto our streets.”