One's Pigeon

From the time I was a kid, I have always been fascinated by pigeons. They are so gregarious and I like the way they coo and strut with their heads bobbing. Some of the pigeons have quite colourful feathers especially the very shiny rainbow like neck feathers and have you noticed their red feet? Once I saw a pigeon with streaks of red feathers and speckled with white here and there and it was simply a funky pigeon on the move.  It was one of the most memorable pigeons I have come across. I think I spent more time looking at pigeons when I was young when one of my aunt had a small wooden house built especially for pigeons in her backyard. The birds were free to come and go and every day she ensured that there is a good supply of grains for them. It is at that time I realized that pigeons call a place ‘home’ and will return every evening to it!!

There always some pigeons walking about in the Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist temples. And many Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs have the habit of feeding grains to the pigeons because they believe that when they are reincarnated one day they will never go hungry if they feed the pigeons in this life. Of course, my Christian friends believe the pigeon is a symbol of peace and of the Holy Spirit. Long before telecommunications and telegraphs poles were invented, the pigeons were used as messenger ‘boys’ in many countries.  It is funny that typing this article brings me memories of pigeon related incidences in my life.  When my grandmother suffered from a stroke and paralysis, the relatives suggested that she should be massaged and rubbed with pigeon's blood.  I do remember seeing her being massaged by an elderly who had the blood in a little stainless steel bowl.  Grandmas had almost purplish coloured blooded applied on her arm and leg.  In Myanmar I saw gemstone merchants selling Pigeon Blood rubies!!  I guess it was the bright red colour of they ruby they were referring to. I have heard of stories of Africans splattering the blood pigeon on their dressing tables and beds to get rid of evil spirits!

About three weeks ago I realized that pair of pigeons has set up home in the corner of my balcony, just behind the air-con compressor. I noticed that they have built a nest with scraps of twigs, newspaper, leaves etc. Then one day I found the pigeon just sitting down on the nest while the other pigeon stood not far from it. The sitting pigeon, mummy was almost lifeless sitting down, looking far ahead. Even when I went nearer to it to take a photograph, it did not budge or look at me. A couple of days later I saw two eggs. The mummy pigeon will sit on the eggs the whole day and the father pigeon will hover around there. I cannot remember their faces too much to know if they take turns to look after the eggs. I guess they were also keeping the eggs warm.

I left for Singapore at that stage and returned to the apartment 15 days later to find the eggs hatched into two tiny bald pigeons!! They looked very ugly. They squeak like crazy, flapping their little bald wings all the time with their little voices and I see the mummy pigeon feeding them often. The bald babies have got quite big bulging tummies and can only walk slowly. The baby pigeon’s beak appears to be far too long for the size of its body. And it has like a pinkish fleshy area at the top of the beak. The parents have whitish part near the beak. They are pooping all over my balcony and made a mess of it. Sometimes I feel that I got to give them a good lashing of the tongue for being so dirty. But then Mummy pigeon could not be bothered to toilet train her children I guess. After all, the sky is the limit for their toilets!

There were many times when birds moved my emotions. There were times when I am frightened for their safety as they fly towards a moving car. I have seen pigeons dead and flattened on the road. Sometimes I feel like a sinner as I did not help a dying pigeon on the road. His wings were broken, he was shivering because he had fallen in the drain and that was the only why I could not go down to carry him out but only look at him. He was lying there looking up at the sky and at that moment I was wondering what was going in his mind. I am sure birds can think and they are not bird brained after all. I wonder what he thought of me as he lay there wounded and as I looked at him. I had to apologize for not being able to reach down into the drain to lift him up and I walked away quickly from the heart wrenching scene, hoping death will come to him quickly.

The security guard of the block of apartments says it will take about 2 months before the whole family will fly off from their home at my balcony. I guess unlike other birds these little pigeons are going to be a bit more matured before they learn how to fly and leave the nest to find a fortune in the horizon. I wish them luck and I thank them for giving me an opportunity to reflect on them. My only wish, I hope they will not tell their relatives that there is a place called home on the 24th floor in Sharjah! I don't want to end up as their daily poo cleaner :-)