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Life Re: My Pigeon

Posted by on April 13 at 15:23 PM

Thanks to all the helpful commenters who weighed in on the plight of my pigeon.

Joe suggested it could be a reincarnated spirit, and pointed me to this lovely New Yorker piece about a pigeon that, for a time, came daily into a Burmese restaurant on the Upper West Side, walked down some stairs to its favorite landing, and took a nap. The Buddhist waiters at the restaurant believed the pigeon might have been the place’s former owner.

Tenspeed suggested I enlist the help of a Pelican:

Keshmeshi warned that sometimes well-fed pigeons attract much bigger pigeons.

And Lloyd Clydesdale told me to call PAWS already.

Which I did.

The PAWS people discouraged me from leaving a nonflying pigeon on the streets to fend for itself, which had been one of my plans. They basically suggested that if I abandoned my pigeon (a bird I never asked for, by the way) I would probably become complicit in this poor creature subsequently getting mauled by a dog, hit by a car, scratched by a cat, or tormented by “mean humans.” They got to me with those images. Once I could envision the chain of events I might set in motion by releasing an injured rat-with-wings into the wild city, I couldn’t live with the thought.

So I agreed to take the bird down to the Seattle Animal Shelter, where the PAWS people swoop through each day and pick up certain animals that they then rehabilitate up at their Lynwood facility (my pigeon, I was told, would be one of the PAWS picks).

The PAWS media representative wrote me:

Thanks for showing compassion toward urban wildlife.

And so I headed home to box up the pigeon and take it down to the animal shelter. But when I arrived the deck was empty again. The pigeon had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but uneaten bread and bird droppings.

PigeonGone.jpg

Was it just toying with me earlier this morning when it showed me it was unable to fly away? Did it simply require a little more rest? At this point, I like Joe’s reincarnated spirit theory best.

CommentsRSS icon

1

Maybe the pigeon was daring you to be compassionate, and when you dared to be, it left.

2

Yeah, but put down some tanglefoot while you can.

3

call em what they are: rats with wings.

4

-- that fuckin' pelican eating the pigeon made me VERY upset. yikes, nature is weird.

: |

5

A little bleach water will clean the turdage right up.

A meeting of the minds, human and pigeon.

6

I found Russian pigeons to be extremely aggressive compared to our fatter, lazier Capitalist pigeons. Their cleverly orchestrated group pecking attacks were downright Hitchcockian.

I don't recommend traveling in St. Petersburg in the Summertime without a Pelican.

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