Mourning Pigeons


 My good friend Joan called the other day to discuss some of the coarser points of New York State/North Country birding politics (don’t ask), and after an hour or so of a chat I remember classifying as decidedly without feathers she cheered up and told me about a northern flicker that had slammed into one of her windows with startling force and ricocheted onto the roof of her porch, a good fifteen feet to the left of the window.

She and her son decided to leave the bird alone rather than subject it to the stress of getting handled, resolving to give the bird forty-fives minutes to recover before intervening. 

Joan rhapsodized at the all but otherworldly beauty of the flicker—it’s subtle yet bold coloration, its elegantly sleek shape, its screaming yellow underwings—and then segued into a description of another flicker she noticed perched in a nearby tree, calling repeatedly, trying, Joan figured, to inspire the helplessly stunned flicker to rally and fly the heck off the porch roof. 

She said the perched bird exuded empathy for its compromised fellow flicker, then wondered aloud if birds actually felt sympathy for each other and if the two birds in question were mates or siblings or, simply, conspecifics. 

I told her a story about a stunned goldfinch that stood helplessly on my deck while another goldfinch perched in tree ten feet away repeatedly called to it, and then perched on my deck railing, periodically flying down beside its fallen fellow goldfinch to preen it and nudge it, finally bringing it around sufficiently for it to fly away.

Then I recalled an incident that occurred in Manhattan when I still lived there most of the time.  One morning, as we pulled out of parking space, I no sooner straightened my wheels to get going than noticed a pigeon walking in circles on the ground in front of my car.  I honked at it, then someone honked at me, from behind.  I drove a little closer to the pigeon and honked again, generating a small chorus of honking to my rear.

Finally, somewhat exasperated, I got out of the car and walked over to shoo away the pigeon, only to realize its obliviousness to danger—a freshly squashed pigeon in the middle of the street, its mate I assumed.  The bird just kept circling the flattened feathers streaked with blood, and when I got closer bent over to peck at it a few times.  When I retreated it went back to circling the remains.

I finally shouted and stomped my foot quite close to the pigeon, which flew onto the sidewalk, watching me, as they say, like a hawk. 

The cabs behind me had backed out of the block, and so I drove down  the  street, catching a red light on Irving Place.

In my rearview mirror I could see the pigeon walking in circles around the remains, pecking at it, seemingly trying to lift it up, describing the scene to my wife.

“John, the  light’s green,” Pat  said, reaching for a tissue to wipe her eyes.

Too macho to cry about a dead pigeon and another one about to get killed while mourning it, I resorted to the manly expedient of tilting my head sharply back and staring at the upholstery on my car’s ceiling, lest a tear roll down  my cheek.

I accelerated through a blurry green light.

                                   John Thaxton writes the “Birdwatch” column for Adirondack Explorer

John Thaxton