In The Beginning....

Ask most New Yorkers their feelings on pigeons and the mode response will likely be, "Flying Rats." There's not a great deal of respect for the ubiquitous Rock Dove, and we come by it honestly - they poop on our streets and our hair, they'll dive bomb a stray hot dog and buzz your scalp in the process, and they just plain don't look that bright. Our children kick them, our dogs run after them, and our cats stare aggressively at them from barred windows.

In this New Yorker vein, for years in my Brooklyn apartment I have expended a great deal of energy banging on windows, keeping them off my sills and A/C, shouting, "Get off my lawn!" Occasionally, after weekend trips or even especially pigeon-prolific afternoons, I would come home to find the beginnings of nest assemblies, only to frighten away the builders upon their next return.

In June of 2011, however, I went away for a week, apparently the same week a certain pigeon couple decided it was time to set up shop. When I returned, I found little Lady Bird hunkered down on a fully developed nest. I banged on the window in my usual form, but this time Mom didn't fly away, just startled enough to give me this view:
At which point I likely said something like, "you've gotta be effing kidding me."

Here's the thing. I can't open the window this air conditioner is in. It was there when I moved in, and until I'm ready to cough up for someone to remove it or install a new one, it and anything on it is going to continue to be there. So, I rapidly cycled through the stages of grieving, and finally landed upon acceptance, which took the form of Facebook status updates.

It turned out I wasn't the only person fascinated by the comings and goings of BabyPigeon and family. I received numerous comments and likes to my posted pictures of BP's evolution, most (myself included) never having actually seen pigeon offspring in the flesh. In the ornery, ugly-but-cute, yellow-feathered flesh.

I laughed as the little beast started pecking at me through the window, found myself excited but apprehensive when BP started taking test flights from the A/C to the bathroom ledge and back to the A/C, and eventually felt down-right, no joke sadness the day I realized BP had made his (her?) final test flight, never to return.

Now, I look at pigeons on the street, especially in my neighborhood, in a very different way, always wondering if that was the one that took its first extra-egg breaths as my subletter.