The Fact about Annoying Pigeons
I care for animals. That’s why I create things for animals — especially for pigeons. But yesterday I encountered a situation where I didn’t like them and even said, “Go away! I’m not sharing my food with you!” Shame on me…
Yesterday we ventured out to a beach city we never visited before. We got some take-out Indian food to enjoy by the harbor. I think the fact that the food was Indian was important for what happened next. We found a nice table by the water and set up the containers of the Indian dishes.
The harbor was a narrow inlet with clear water. The main noise was from sea lions lying on the beach a little further down from the harbor. I was happy to see various birds — a few pelicans, seagulls, stilts, and a flock of…pigeons!
When we started to enjoy the nice Indian food as if we were seated at an ocean-view restaurant, I noticed a flock of pigeons flying up from the beach area. They flew toward the harbor and made a sharp turn toward us! They dived so low over us, our table and food. I quickly covered the food. They flew back up away and then u-turned again toward us! They tried to land this time and that was when I screamed and said the above words.
They kept attempting to land and I kept screaming at them. Some dared to land and stayed waiting just a few feet from us. And when we left the table, we made sure we didn’t leave anything behind.
You see, I didn’t like what they did. As a Japanese person, if someone is lying on the floor, I was taught that it was rude to step over them. I wouldn’t have minded the pigeons being near us on the land waiting for food if only they landed further away and walked toward us….Well, I caught myself being silly while writing this.
I created a comic book about pigeons which talks about the history of pigeons and their perspectives. Nonetheless I felt the anger that made many people not to like pigeons.
This didn’t sit well with me for the rest of the day. I slept and woke up this morning and realized the history of pigeons in a new way.
Pigeons have been really close to us humans. Throughout history we, the humans, made pigeon coops and invited them in by giving them food so that we could eat them. We took advantage of their intelligence treating them as if they were our pets so that they would trust us.…No wonder they live so close to us, eat the food that we eat and leave behind. They are like our pet dogs. They will gladly come to us when they see us with food. Just there are too many of them….
When I realized this I decided two things. One, I will keep caring for pigeons. And two, I will never eat lunch at that harbor again.