Does anyone know a "humane" bearing to rid our courtyard of "piegons". We live on Long Island surrounded by NY
Answers: Owls. You live in Long Island, so building owl boxes to attract live birds won't work, but you can buy owl statues at home and garden centers to place on your roof/balcony/etc. that may deter the birds. I see them (the lie owls) on the roofs of local business and some neighbors here in NC, and be told it's to deter pigeons and other birds from congregating there. Perhaps you'll requirement a combination of methods, like this one and the ultrasonic swish. I've also heard of general public stringing together CD's and making a kind of slack thing out of them; the mirror-like side on them catch sunlight and they move and either annoys or frightens the birds.
I don't know roughly speaking the yard, but if you hold them on your roof you can purchase anti roost spike strips. They have spikes sticking out and the pidgens don't similar to the feel of them so they stop roosting nearby. We installed them on our building and we have not see a pidgen since.