If anyone ever tell you that all pigeons are the same - dirty, greasy, filthy rats of the sky - go ahead and open palm slap them in the face for being so stupid. Maybe it's just me, but I've always been fond of the subtle differences. The rust on the chain. The ability of architecture to reflect age. A sharp but quiet wit, an almost indiscernible sarcasm. Maybe it's for this reason that the pigeons were so striking. Europe's pigeon population is at its tippy-top, remarkable and never short of quirky. In London (Hyde Park, anyways), the pigeons have a sort of majesty about them. They are larger than life, which is to say they're bigger, prettier, and cleaner than any other pigeons I'd previously encountered. There was a wisdom there as well that was beyond American pigeons. If I caught their eye, it was like trading thoughts with an elephant.
[work]
"And what, pray tell, were they thinking?" you may ask. Well, my fair idiot, they were thinking about food of course. They did not regard people with hesitation; these weren't they pussy-footed sky rats of LA, afraid of their own reflections, wallowing in the shadows waiting for vacant restaurant plates and abandoned Doritos bags.
These were prim and proper beasts. Calculating and brash. As for humans, to them, we were merely one of two entities: a being with no food to offer, or one come to feed. And if you happened to be the latter, there was no fear and no pause. They perched on the hand by the two or three and pecked without hurry. No stuffing of the bird cheeks. Calm and collected, they were. Birds that carried themselves with poise and grace of one of her majesty's creatures. Colonialists be damned.
