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WALNUT CREEK — Bob Teachout knows a thing or two about pigeons. He keeps about 400 of them at his Walnut Creek home and has been racing pigeons for 40 years. 

Now if he only had such a deft touch in dealing with his neighbors who say they’ve grown tired of dead birds on their lawns and pigeon droppings speckled across their homes and sidewalks. 

A city zoning official has ordered Teachout to reduce his roost by half, but he’s appealed that decision. Now he’ll see his disgruntled neighbors again Thursday when the Walnut Creek Planning Commission takes another look at the pigeon problem. 

Most homeowners in Walnut Creek are limited to three pets per household but Teachout is exempt from the limit because he had the birds before the city annexed the land from the county. 

“I want to be able to continue doing what I have been doing ever since I’ve lived here,” Teachout said. 

His neighbors, like Vaughan Bargy, say the pigeons are a cooing nuisance. 

“We’ve got pigeon droppings, dead birds started showing up more and more frequently in my yard,” Bargy said. “There are millions of flies in the warm weather,” and the smell kicks into high gear “when the wind blows the wrong way.” 

Bargy is one of four neighbors that banded together and filed a complaint with the city in November about the raucous roost. 

Teachout said the complaint about flies attracted to his birds and their smell is merely a circumstance of living in the great outdoors. 

“We live in the country,” Teachout said. “There is a slight odor, but it’s not offensive.” 

After investigating the neighbors’ complaint, Walnut Creek zoning administrator Victoria Walker ruled in December that the pigeons were indeed a nuisance.