In the spirit of John Green’s book of the same title, our theme for the month of October is “the Anthropocene reviewed.” Writers were asked to review and rate some facet of human experience on a five-star scale.
People love cities for a million reasons. In a few square miles you have access to opera houses and dive bars, Shakespeare in the park and bucket drummers, majestic bridges and frequent metros. People love the grandeur alongside the grit. They love the variety of people in cities and the depth of culture you find when enough people with shared life experiences get together. They love the fried food and scarves of abundant paisleys and constant moving lights.
But I doubt many people love cities for the pigeons. Pigeons occupy the negative space you wouldn’t think about unless something else was there instead. The speckled fringe carpeting the cobblestone sidewalk. The fistful of wings launching off the ground and right into your frantic beeline to the M2. Maybe they’re petty annoyances for most city dwellers, but they are an undeniable force of life populating nearly every major city in the world. They deserve some consideration.
I can sympathize with pigeon opponents. Constantly shooing away a pigeon who’s after your lunch gets old fast, especially if they hop up onto the chair across from you with those claws that have walked on all kinds of questionable surfaces. And you never know how to dodge them when you cross their path. When you cringe and duck, old men sitting on doorsteps laugh at you. When you freeze and pretend it’s just a bee who won’t bother you if you stand still, you slow the pace of traffic on a crowded crosswalk. I’ve tried both and neither has gone well.
But I couldn’t give a fair evaluation if I ignored the historic value of the pigeon. Homing pigeons have been around since Julius Caesar, who used them to communicate with his soldiers. Pigeons have the nifty ability to find their way back home after a long excursion into the world, sometimes with a little note strapped to their leg. Some scientists think it’s the magnetic material in pigeons’ beaks that give them their built-in GPS. During World War II, 32 pigeons were even decorated for delivering crucial messages for the US army. It turns out those talons can do more than just encroach on your personal space.
Mary Poppins seemed to think pigeons were valuable enough to sing about. As she puts her two young wards to bed, she retrieves a snowglobe that sends a flurry of pigeons around a miniature St. Paul’s Cathedral. The snowglobe morphs into the fuzzy image of an old woman scattering crumbs, surrounded by pigeons, imploring people to feed the birds from the church steps. It’s kind of a sacred moment. The stone-faced “saints and apostles” etched into the cathedral are offering their silent approval to an impoverished woman who is sharing what little she has with the scum of the earth. Mary Poppins imparts this vision to her upper-class children as part of their life training—along with gravity-canceling laughter and rooftop line dancing. Subversions all around.
I can’t say I’ve quite arrived at the point of appreciation when I encounter the common pigeon puttering around. But a few days ago, I found a pigeon resting outside my window, as close to sleep as I’ve seen any bird. It was cooing somewhere within its doze. Much like people, pigeons can get nasty when they’re in a mob. They’re also capable of life-saving acts of heroism. And most of the time, they’re just looking for a spot to rest.
I give pigeons three out of five stars.
Michal graduated from Calvin in 2022 with a major in writing and a minor in global development studies. She’ll be working with a refugee resettlement organization in Hungary for the 2022-2023 year. She is always up for a spontaneous trip to the closest beach.
