Tweet! Tweet! Part One

So, this will be my second summer in the apartment and I had big plans for a balcony garden and to sit out there with home made iced tea and read and write, and not be so addicted to what my PS3 can do. My garden was going to have tomatoes, and lettuces, and peas, and raspberries, and maybe even some zuccini. And I was going to sit in my muskoka chair and watch the world go by. But then, the totally obvious happened.

I got pigeons. Two of them. A mommy and a daddy pigeon. Yes, I have a pigeon nest on my balcony. It's been there for just over a week (I think). There is so much pigeon shit out there it stopped being funny. That's right, poop stopped being funny. Apartment dwellers, take heed! If you don't go out on your balcony everyday and put up cds and other shiny things, the birds will roost!

Up until very recently, I liked pigeons, had no problem with them. All birds really, but working downtown has allowed me greater access to pigeons. As it turns out, I find them endearing. The ones downtown walk between the people like they belong there. They even cross the street with the humans, seemingly forgetting that they can fly. They'll even stop with the pedestrians waiting for the light to change. It's one of the most adorable things I've ever seen a bird do, even if it is out of sheer stupidity. So I'll sit in the park, or on the rooftop of Jackson Square on my lunch break and watch the birds.

When people hear this, they invariably tell me that pigeons are just rats with wings. To which I must reply, all birds are rats with wings. They all carry the same lice, parasites, and mites as pigeons, but other birds get 24hr video surveillance ::coughcoughperegrinfalconscough:: to make sure they're all right. So I choose not to discriminate against the lowly pigeon.

And when they built their nest on my balcony, everybody said, you've got to get rid of the nest! Gotta, gotta, gotta! But I can't. Now that I was negligent enough in keeping them off my balcony (which they are only drawn to because pigeons, or rock doves-doesn't garner the same image, does it?, historically roost in cliff faces off the coasts of S Africa, and SE Asia) I can't just destroy the nest. So a friend said he'd do it for me. And I found that I couldn't let that happen either.

Having these birds roost on my balcony has taught me something about myself. I always thought I could harm animals. I often joke about not wanting a cat because they're lower on the food chain than I am, but I can't hurt the pigeon eggs just because they're inconveniencing me. I can't really play the badass carnivore as much as I thought.

But they won't inconvenience me for long. They'll hatch in another week, and squabs (baby pigeons) fledge in about a month. And until then I've built a small balcony garden (tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and a raspberry plant) and I can sit in my chairs...once I clean them. My balcony is big enough for all of us...for now. But you know the second those birds fledge I'm evicting the whole family. They can find another balcony, I'll just watch from mine. After that, it's Darwin's problem, not mine. (Was that badass carnivore enough?)