Companions

There is a slow burn of loathing toward the indigenous pigeon in metropolitan areas . The majority regard them as filthy, indiscriminate in their production of feces and generally disease ridden. They’re noisy, dauntless underfoot and completely, maliciously ubiquitous throughout the urban landscape. I offer up my humble advocacy for the turnabout of this unfair mindset. I say it is time to put a stop to this foolishness and learn to share our city spaces with these exemplary survivors. The pigeon is a pillar of the modern ecosystem; its body is that of a finely tuned, well honed generalist and scavenger, capable of surviving in a multiplicity of environments and temperatures. Our avian neighbors are fast breeding, compact, able to survive on a meager amount of food, and confident in their nesting in the crevices of our creation.

To limit one’s perception of this companion species to a handful of negative traits is simply blindness. It ignores the friendly persona, the simple needs and the beauty of the creature’s sudden transition from terrestrial seeking to effortless flight. Most importantly, it ignores the fact that this creature, among so many, is able to coexist with us. We do not see herds of antelope subsisting on discarded pizza crust and carelessly spilt cereal. Wolves do not camp in the eaves of the public library. Isn’t there a healthy implication of optimism in learning to love what we can have, rather than pining over the lost causes?

We kill everything with our constant excretion of asphalt and rebar. We drive away the other beasts and doom ourselves to this solitary wandering. Be glad that evolution crafts us this great companion, something to live off our detritus and handouts. There will be precious few as time mourns our expansion.