Headpigeons!Follow

I live on a street that consists mainly of little terrace houses with iron lacework built in the 1800's. A few of the blocks have been consolidated as a pair, and larger, modern double story houses built on the double-wide land. For ten years a nice Chinese man with two very cute and very nasty, white, curly-haired dogs lived on the corner. He'd take his dogs walking every evening, and stop and feed the pigeons. If I walked by him and he had his dogs, one in particular would growl and bare his teeth and lunge at me. And at everyone else. And at passing cars.

Eventually I heard that this man's pigeon -feeding was the basis of a neighbourhood feud. You see, no-one on the street has room for a garage. Everyone parks on the street, under large Plane trees that provide beautiful shade in the Summer. Not only do our sweet, large-eyed Australian possums run up and down the electrical wires, and in and out of the plane trees, and **** all over the cars below, but so do a large quantity of pigeons. Not ****. Poo. On the cars. Below.

Now, I have always enjoyed the sound of pigeons cooing outside. But apparently a lot of the neighbours were unhappy their cars received almost daily libations of pigeon poo. Now no-one was complaining about the possums because the huge quantity of possums around here are wild and shy and nocturnal and stay out of sight generally. But they had some-one to blame for the pigeons. Because some-one fed the pigeons.

It was a generally held truth that if the pigeons weren't fed, there would be far less of them around. Especially daily. I am a tiny bit dubious about this, because Melbourne has sparrows and pigeons like flying mice and rats, in general. However, some neighbours were greatly in earnest in blaming the pigeon-feeding-man for their car woes. This thought fed great wrath in their bosoms, and whenever the Chinese pigeon-feeding-man was out walking his dogs, he wound up almost daily being buttonholed by an irate neighbour or two who told him to stop feeding the pigeons. For ten years.

Pigeon Feeding man, instead of bowing to public pressure, decided to keep feeding the pigeons, and suffer a nervous breakdown instead, because he couldn't cope with years of neighbourly abuse, insults and finally threats to his property, personal safety and life. He really suffered under his nervous breakdown, and finally had to move away. That was two years ago, and I am reminded of the whole contretemps as I listen to the pigeon gently cooing outside my window right now.

Edited, Jan 6th 2012 3:54am by Aripyanfar

That was a cute story and well written, made me smile.

There's a plaza not far from my house where people feed the pigeons. There's a posted sign saying not to, but whatever.

I only really notice more pigeons in the area when they're actually on the bricks eating whatever people have dropped for them.

On the other hand, the pigeon population as a whole has declined a bit (and gotten much healthier overall) since the peregrines came back.

I'm surprised the possums don't eat enough eggs to check the pigeon population there. Or maybe they do, dunno!

Maybe SillyXSara really hates pigeons and thinks he deserves what he got?

I'd be the guy shooting the pigeons with a bb gun.

No, the pigeons are Alma and the Chinese man is everyone that "debates" with him to keep him around here.

I deal with pigeons, seagulls, and starlings all the time at the harbor. Every once and a while I have to clean my uniform from a deposit. Every once in a while I also have to clean up the remains of a pigeon killed by one of the area falcons.
The restaurants in the area ask folks not to feed the birds around their outdoor seating.

I don't give a damn whether the birds were starving or whether the pore pore neighbours were "uncomfortable" with what he did -

They had no right to command him not to feed the birds - or harass him when he did.

I feel uncomfortable with people driving cars period - but hey, I just suck it up cause I have no right how to tell other people to live their lives. If they were traumatized by bird poo - boo frigging hoo.

Since it was their neighborhood as well, I'm pretty sure they had every right to ask him to stop. It's part of living in a neighborhood with other people.

And as far as the harassment when he did not stop, you wanna feel bad for the guy? sh*t goes both ways, I'm sure that they didn't start threatening him the first time he threw a handful of bread out to the birds, instead after the asked him to stop and he refused to, and then refused to over the years.

As for the feeding not being the reason they were there... I'm sure it made matters worse. There are hundreds of seagulls in the city I live, but there are none by my house. They congregate where there is food. If one of my neighbors started feeding them and luring them to my neighborhood, I'd be a little upset about the noise and seagull droppings. And just because they live in the general area doesn't mean that it wouldn't be my neighbor's fault that they were sh*tting on, and squawking around, my house and property.

Don't act like this crazy little man is some innocent victim here.

Edit:

Also, Head Pigeons.


Edited, Jan 6th 2012 8:46pm by TirithRR

Edited, Jan 9th 2012 8:19pm by TirithRR

also the story made me cry a little. I am a big softie

Exactly.

Meh, I think it's nice the guy stuck with it, but I hate that it caused him so much pain in the end.

He liked walking his dogs, and I imagine he grew attached to the birds, as well. It would be very difficult to continue walking your dog and see the birds get excited to see you and think you have food for them, and just walk by them. The birds don't understand, and they will stick around for quite a while waiting for him to feed them. For a bleeding heart like me, it would be difficult to see those birds waiting and waiting to be fed.

OH GOD KELVEYQUayO YOU *******.