pigeon 101

Frankly, I’m shocked. I’m downright shocked that I haven’t told you all about the pigeons before now.

For any nature-gawker rooted in a city, pigeons form the bulk of the wildlife on offer any given day. We’ve peeked at pigeons by the fireside and pigeons close to home, but these few glimpses don’t convey how central Columba livia is to the pattern of my days. It started with the garden. This summer I packed my tiny balcony with containers sprouting peppers, strawberries, herbs and a trellis of scarlet runner beans. That’s when the neighborhood pigeons got curious about the goings-on here on the third floor. Every lazy weekend morning, I could look forward to regular neighborly visits from inquisitive birds, nestling comfortably down in my planters, crushing my lettuce plants under soft slaty bellies, pecking about for any promising seedy snacks. We got accustomed to each other’s company, out there in the shade of the runner bean vines.

Now that it’s winter, and the windows are shut fast, the pigeons are often my only brush with the natural world. More: on a silent heavy-snowed morning, their soft thrumming calls can be the only sound I hear for hours. More: they know when I wake up, and my first step toward the window is hailed with tiny storms and feathers, as the flock descends from watchful perches on the roof to my balcony. When I open the window to scatter breakfast handfuls, they hop onto the sill, and would happily amble inside if I let them for a self-serve breakfast buffet.

They are still common, of course, still often underfoot, still easy to overlook. But I’ve also discovered that they look rather endearing with snow piled on their heads. That their eyes are an orange of unsettling intensity. That some are the colors of an heirloom cameo, soft sepia beneath a bone-bright filigree. That I’m a pushover and could easily bankrupt myself catering to their insatiable appetites, and those of their rivals the squirrels.