So, a few days ago, in Fitzgerald’s Park, I saw this absolutely gorgeous baby bird, I’m not sure weather it’s a pigeon or a dove, sometimes it can be easy to get those two mixed up, as they are a similar species.
Look at you, look at you, look at you, look at you!
Isn’t this little baby bird the best? Doesn’t this little creature melt your heart! Doesn’t….
Then, a small child arrived and started trying to kick this little bird. Don’t worry, the bird was fine, I think the child actually missed, pigeons have very fast reaction time. That’s why if a car is almost upon them, they always seem to escape in the nick of time. From their point of view, a golf cart was very slowly approaching them, and one of them says, “Should we move?” and the other says, “Don’t worry Gerald, there’s plenty of time!”
So anyway, even though the little bird was fine, what worried me was simply the fact that, the child wanted to kick the bird. Why? Now, the answer I would hope for, is that the child, I mean, by definition, he’s a child, has a lot of growing up to do, and give it a few years and he’ll realize this behaviour is wrong.
After all, I did. It may surprise people to know, given that now I’m an insect enthusiast, that when I was a child my behaviour towards flies was just unspeakably cruel, and it it still pains me to think of how I used to treat these creatures. I still don’t want them anywhere near my food, but now I just scare them away, there is no need to kill them, and definitely not in the cruel way that I did when I was a child.
So, sometimes it takes children a bit of time to learn empathy for animals, so maybe it’s all fine.
Except, I’ve also encountered this attitude of contempt for pigeons among adults.
Look at this picture from the Lough.
It’s pigeonmonium is what it is!
This is just from a few weeks ago, and it shows the high concentration of pigeons in The Lough. I think it’s quite joyful to see so many of them flying about. Does everyone think this? No!
A few months ago, a man was feeding the birds at the Lough. I thought it was amazing and joyful to see perhaps seventy pigeons land in front of him. What he said next I found to be absolutely chilling.
“They should cull the pigeons! There’s too many of them!”
It was the rage in his voice that I found to be disturbing. If he had calmly stated, “Look, it’s unfortunate, but there won’t be enough food to go around unless we cull the pigeons, I just don’t want many of these birds to starve to death.”
I still wouldn’t have agreed that culling was the answer, but I’d have understood it better.
No, what just really got to me was the hate in his voice. Why did he want these birds DEAD so much?
He was feeding some of the other birds there, perhaps the gralag geese that occupy the Lough. But a load of pigeons landed and ate the food.
So? Pigeons have to eat too! I have recently started feeding the birds in the Lough, and I just want to provide food for any bird that needs it! It seems this man wanted the experience of feeding whatever bird he thought was better than the pigeons, whatever bird he thought was superior.
He was a birdsupremacist!
A good few years ago I saw a guy try to grab hold of one of the pigeons. Luckily the pigeon got away, I dread to think what would have happened otherwise. I’m so happy that the pigeons have lightning fast reaction time. I dread to think what would happen if they couldn’t move so fast.
They have been called names like sky rats, flying feathered rats, winged rats. And there’s obviously a second prejudice built into that too, a hatred for rats, but that’s a whole other subject.
What is so bad about pigeons?
As I was researching this blogpost, I learned something that made me even more concerned for our feathered friends.
A few months ago, the German town of Limburg an der Lahn, voted to kill it’s population of approximately 700 pigeons.
The plan is for the birds to be lured into a trap, then hit over the head, then, for their necks to be broken.
Why the hate? If this was hatred of, I don’t know, some sort of twelve headed lion that eats children, then I could understand, but this is the animal people hate, THIS!!!!:
What is most striking about this creature is that it is not a twelve headed lion that eats children.
Note the only one head, as opposed to twelve. And also, this creature can fly, meaning it’s definitely not a lion. Also, the creature’s small size means it’s not capable of eating children.
For these two, I contacted an expert on whether something is a twelve headed lion that eats children, or not that at all, and I was assured, yes, these two are not twelve headed lions that eat children.
I have had, for quite some time, a theory on why so many people hate pigeons. Is it the poop? I don’t think so. Sure, it’s annoying when a pigeon uses you as a toilet, but it’s if anything, less annoying than stepping in dog poo, a substance which is frankly, way more gross and disgusting than pigeon shit. Not scooping the poop is illegal in Ireland and many countries, but some owners simply don’t do it, and, if you get dog shit on your shoe you are in for a far worse day than if a pigeon shits on you!
So, I don’t think it’s the fact that pigeons have the ability to shit anywhere along the vertical axis, as opposed to humans and dogs which can only shit on the part of the vertical axis that is near the ground. I think something else is going on. And I think it is……..
We, humans, don’t own this world. It belongs to every creature on this planet. And city pigeons tell us that, every, single day.
They tell us by walking our streets, right beside us. They just go about their day. They don’t care what the hairless apes are up to. “Oh there’s a hairless ape, who cares, I’m doing pigeon stuff.” Unlike many birds which fly away when they get even a glimpse of a human, (And I’m not saying they shouldn’t, some humans unfortunately mean them harm.) pigeons, just, don’t give a fuck!
I often imagine what a conversation with a city pigeon would be like, if they could talk. I would say, “Despite having no natural ability to move fast, we built machines that allow us to move quite fast” and the pigeon would respond, “I do not care.” And I would say, “Okay, but despite having literally no natural ability to fly naturally, we built machines that allow us to fly” and the pigeon would respond, “I DO not care.” And then I would say, “Okay, but in 1969, we landed two humans on the moon, no animal has ever managed to get into space, let alone land somewhere other than Earth.” And the pigeon would respond, “What part of I DO NOT CARE do you not understand?”
They’re not held in captivity for food purposes, like chickens. City pigeons don’t flee in terror at the sight of a human, like most birds. Their job is not to serve us, through their own deaths, or to validate our “supremacy” by getting well out of the way when humans are about.
No, a pigeon’s job is just, to be a pigeon, to do pigeon stuff, no matter what the humans have to say about it. And I think that’s why a lot of people hate them. That feeling that humanity owns the world, it’s questioned by pigeons, every single day. Because we don’t own the world. We may have split the atom, and invented a very sophisticated machine that transmutes bread into a substance called “toast”, but that doesn’t mean we own the world. It belongs to all of us, and by “us” I mean humans, birds, apes, bees, whales, spiders, butterflies, and many others! And that’s why I think a lot of people hate the pigeon. Pigeons assert their right to exist, and thrive in this world, in a way that makes anyone with a speciesist attitude deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps, and this is an idea, maybe try and sort out that weird shit before you decide to kill hundreds of pigeons. Maybe that might be an idea, Limburg an der Lahn?
People think of pigeons as clumsy and not so elegant, but, I have observed many of them in flight, and they are seriously skilled fliers. I’ve been trying, to varying degrees of success, to capture these birds in flight with my camera. I previously displayed a picture of a pigeon in flight, but here are some others I managed to get.
A Feral Pigeon In The Lough.
As already mentioned, The Lough in Cork is a haven for pigeons. This is one of them. And here’s a wood pigeon I in the Glen River Park.
Wood pigeon off in the distance.
After a day of frustration trying to get a clear photo of a flying wood pigeon, I finally got this, probably my clearest ever photo of a wood pigeon in flight.
Fly pigeon fly!
Hope to get an even clearer picture of a wood pigeon in flight some day. The sight of them in flight is just awe inspiring to see.
Have you ever taken the time to stop and think about the fact that birds are sentient aircraft? Thinking, feeling creatures that can do what a Boeing 747 can do? Just because we’ve known it since childhood doesn’t make it any less amazing. This picture of a feral pigeon, captured in my backyard, I think is one of my best for illustrating this.
Such a powerful flying machine!
This was just one of those moments where it was just a case of, click quickly or you’ll miss your chance, hence why the entire right wing is missing, but I think I managed to capture the bird’s face in enough detail, and the left wing in enough detail to hopefully illustrate the fact that, this is a thinking, feeling creature, that possesses the amazing gift of flight. Amazing. And people hate these animals? It doesn’t make sense.
And here is one of my favourite wood pigeon photos, because it looks like they’re having fun playing on the roof!
We’re playing a game it’s so much fun!
Wood pigeon eating dinner.
I’m a person who finds it hard to relax, but, do you know what one of the most relaxing things in the world is? Watching a pigeon who is relaxed. I think this pigeon, hopefully, doesn’t have a care in the world, and is just happily enjoying the fruits of the tree.
Relaxed pigeons are relaxing.
And here’s some of my pictures of one of my favourite types of birds, the collared doves. This is to illustrate a point, people like collared doves, but not pigeons, despite them being practically the same species.
Aww look how cute and similar to pigeons they are!
Awwww you have such a cute pigeon like appearance! Anyone who likes you and not pigeons is a hypocrite, aren’t they, aren’t they!
AWWWWWWWWW look at these little cuties who are quite similar on a genetic level to pigeons AWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
So, to summarize, if you don’t hate pigeons, good on you for being awesome! And if you do hate pigeons, well, the word on the street is that you are a weirdo. I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that’s the word on the street. People won’t want to sit with you at the lunch table anymore. So, you know what the solution is. Stop hating pigeons, you freak!
Ponderings Of An Autist 