Monthly Archives: July 2013

A selection of today’s visitors:

I can’t imagine the day when these little scenes will fail to delight. Eat up, little one!

I know I’ve been rather down on pigeons, lately, even going so far as to speak of putting them in pies. And my portraits of them tend towards the unflattering. But, here, check out the way the light’s coming through this one’s orange eyeballs, casting colourful patches of light across that crinkly eyeskin! (I think that’s about as charming as it’s going to get, for a pigeon. Sorry!)

Little birds have an awfully rough go of it, in the early weeks of their lives. The instant they leave the nest — and even before — they’re ready prey for, well, just about anything with a mouth.
But the very beginning, those first few days, pillowed below by the nest, and above by the mother bird’s feathers, must be terribly comfortable.
These feathers belong to a male gull, but don’t they look cushy?

Hey, falcons — any of you out there, looking for a snack? Don’t settle for the first skinny starling or frail flicker to happen by. Come and get this MASSIVE PIGEON, which is not only enormous (and delicious; come on — even I want to eat it!), but a bit of a bully. It likes to puff up that great shiny throat of its, and chase other birds from the feeder, while making obnoxious cooing noises. It even chases the other pigeons, which is hardly fair play. You falcons are more than welcome to this pigeon, especially if you eat it right there on the railing, then sit and preen a while, so I can take pictures.

A fat, tasty PIGEON!

Maybe I’ll eat it, myself. It’s been a while, since I’ve had a nice pigeon pie. Pigeons are expensive, here, probably because most people don’t know they’re edible, so grocery shops have to import them for those few diners aware of the lowbrow comforts of four-and-twenty winged rats, baked in a pie.

(I am, of course, joking about eating the pigeon. Noshing on wild birds doesn’t seem like a particularly safe or humane proposition. And if I’m going to have a pie, I’d prefer quail or pheasant. Or turkey. But a turkey’s awfully big. I couldn’t eat a whole turkey, by myself. How did this entry become about poultry pies?)

I didn’t get outside, today; I’m still rather sneezy, and there are flowers everywhere, pollen drifting on the breeze like, eh…a very itchy, drifting thing —

— wait, a very itchy, drifting thing? What’s that, a tramp who hasn’t had a change of underpants, in a while? This sentence took a wrong turn, somewhere; where was I? Oh, right —

— I didn’t get outside today, because of pollen, but I swear I will, tomorrow. I’ll pop out while my pie’s in the oven. :-)