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Wednesday, 30 December 2015

The year ... of the determined pigeons

I am very fortunate.  I live on the 29th floor of a tower block and balconies only start on the 29th floor.  It's  a precious piece of private outdoor space where I have a couple of chairs, a few plants, some lanterns and some very determined squatters.


 I started hearing them, cooing and billing and saw them gathering a few twigs together in a planter.  I shooed them off, I even, around Holi, squirted them with a handy water pistol.  To no avail, within a few days these appeared:


Pigeons, it seems, have minimalistic nesting requirements.

They settled in, one during the day, the other at night.  A few days later the eggs disappeared crows I expect.

And so the cycle began, fluttering and billing, a few more leaves and a couple of eggs would appear only to be gone again.  This has happened five times to date and still they return to the same spot.

Currently, there's a pair of eggs which have been sat on for nearly two weeks , a record and I am rather hoping there will be squabs- but one of them is cracked.  They may not be the brightest birds out there but you have to hand it to them for their bloody mindedness.

2 comments:

magiceye said...

Be thankful to the crows!! :D

anne aka AMASC said...

I am in a way, but they're so determined I kind of want them to have their chicks. I would just prefer them to have them somewhere else.