Pigeons

Monday

Melanie Ferbreach

The curious history of pigeon-fancying

Unsociably early one recent Sunday morning, our retired guide dog nuzzled me awake. Half sleepwalking into the back garden with her, I greeted the gentle quiet of the morning, the air still cool and breathable, the ongoing daily dose of stifling heat not yet dispensed. Just the odd pigeon padding about. Well, one odd pigeon. Not one of the usual suspects - bulky, block grey, waddling -here was a delicate, slender creature, striking black and white feathers sleeked across its back, cautiously pecking under the birdseed feeder hanging from an apple tree. A mysterious, ancient world of allegiance, courage and efficiency A closer look revealed each leg was banded - one green, the other turquoise.

Friday

Josie Cox

Adieu, Dinosaur the pigeon

From our US edition

On one of the first warm Saturdays of this year, hundreds of New Yorkers flocked to the popular High Line, the railway-turned-public park that extends over 22 blocks of Manhattan, to bid farewell to a T-Rex-sized pigeon. The pigeon, cast out of aluminum and named “Dinosaur,” had been a resident of its elevated perch since 2024. As so many New Yorkers will tell you, though, part of what’s magical about living in this city is that the experience is often transient. In the words of Baz Luhrmann, you should “leave before it makes you hard.” There’s nothing worse than a hard pigeon and so it was that on that glorious day last month, I joined throngs of people eager to get one last look at the monstrous, departing bird.

Wednesday

Michael Lind

Pigeons are the solution to the statue controversy

From our US edition

Will nobody think of the pigeons? That thought has repeatedly occurred to me, as beloved roosts for generations of urban pigeons have been toppled in one city after another on both sides of the Atlantic by the radical left, in the greatest eruption of iconoclasm since the era when Theodora graced the burlesque stage in Constantinople. Tearing down Confederate war memorials, it turns out, is a gateway drug to toppling statues of Catholic saints, Civil War abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln himself. Gradually, it has dawned on a horrified, watching world: they don’t hate Confederates. They hate statues! All statues!Now, thanks to the actions of a lawless few, countless pigeons in cities in America and Europe have been rendered homeless.

pigeons