Eggstra! Eggstra! Read all about it!
Much in the same way that the BBC forced people into tuning in every bloody night to Spring Watch, only to mong out at dull nightvision feeds of vacant nesting boxes, I will be regularly reporting on the fool hardy pigeon hen who has just appeared on my balcony with a freshly laid egg.
I shall not interfere in the least; Despite not wanting to scare the mother from its young, she won't let me get near it! It's too dangerous even wearing oven gloves, a baking tray breastplate and a colander on my head.
In weeks to come will we struggle to contain our proud throat-lumps as the plump, freshly feathered sky-rat makes its first majestic glide from the balcony wall? Or will we be sodden with a cold and damp feeling of futility and emptiness as I report of the chick's desperate demise?
Stay Tuned!
4 comments:
This is lovely story!
I hate to day it Dave but this reminds me of the baby herring gull who I watched and admired for many months from my bedroom window in Compton. After 4 months of trying to fly, he swooped off the roof, into a citreon saxo motoring down the road and was found by Dan, Dead. I cried and cried it was awful. Jonathan wrote me a brilliant poem about it. I'll se eif he can find it for you. It might prepare you for the inevitable. Mind you, pigeons are hardy f**ckers and I'm sure he'll do just fine.
ohh ohh ohh, I found the poems we wrote and here they are....
ode to cyril, by Ali
you were born, a fluffy ball of grey
you lived on the roof next door
you grew and grew with each passing day
you flapped your wings and sang your songs
mostly in the morning about 5am
i watched you proudly from my window
then one day the news came
you were gone
your fluffy feathers no more
your song never to be heard
your wings never to spread
rest in peace cyril.
rest assured we will find the motherf**ker who ran you down and tear him limb from limb
Cyril, Ascending by Jonathan
you were the world of blogging's most famous
and singular seagull. Little more than a gull-child,
your pencil grey feathers and hesitant take-off
seeming somehow to stand for life in a world
which is savage and wild.
Larus modestus, stood on your perch overlooking
the city, the burger king wrappers and the scent
of the chippy. And pigeons and gulls, oh
they swoop and they sneer when you try to take off
then feel queer, and fall back to the sill feeling dizzy and ill,
flight so far yet so near.
Then the day arrrives. Spurred on by that girl
who each day wills you on - and the smell of kebabs
wafting up from the station - you are launched.
And this time the air wafts you up and you laugh
and you smile and you fly... and you're free at last.
You could fly anywhere, somewhere far somewhere near,
you could take out an infant way down at the pier
and fly off with his ice cream to london, to paris,
and then suddenly near - a toyota yaris!
you have swooped down too low
and the angles are shady,
you think for a moment of your perch,
your sill,
of that beautiful lady,
who watched you and waited, who would be
so proud - and now has to know
that some cunt mowed you down.
Rest in peace Cyril.
I've never seen a baby Pigeon Dave. If you get photographic evidence of one you will have a Wildlife first on your hands!
Have you set up a Web Cam?
Hey Dan-
That's a good idea! If although I'll need a spare pc to host the webcam- Does anyone have a crappy old laptop that's not being used?
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