Sainsbury's complicit in slaughter of patch bird!
There was a bit of commotion on The Wandle yesterday, Blackbirds, Magpies, Coots all doing alarm calls - loads of gulls circling and calling wildly but I couldn't see what the fuss was. Until a Pigeon flew across the river with a plastic bag attached to it's foot. Specifically a Sainsbury's bag (identification is important don't you know). Unfortunately for the pigeon, plastic bags are not very aerodynamic. So it landed in the river.
This freaked all the ducks out and they flew off. Bummer. The Pigeon then flapped about a bit, trying to take off. Like this...
This didn't work. So it decided to flap towards the bank, to give itself a chance of getting dry and not drowning. Which it did. Unfortunately the bank on this part of The Wandle is nothing more than silt. So it got stuck. And there it sat, exhausted. It's ulitmate fate involved drowning or perhaps being tea for a Herring Gull or Heron if found.
This would be an appostite moment to launch into a full blown rant about how bad plastic bags are and how we are polluting the environment on so many levels etc etc. But beyond the wall there is a waste recycling plant (which we have to admit that we need) and anyway - its only a Pigeon, eh?
3 comments:
I saw a similar incident involving a Black-headed Gull and some fishing line late last year at my local park. Unfortunately this occurred on an island on a lake so I was unable to assist in freeing the Gull thus it remained hanging for at least a week!
It is a shame people don't think before discarding such items and the effect they have on other beings even if they are only pigeons or gulls!!
I'm afraid that I couldn't watch an animal suffer, regardless of species.
Unfortunately, it's sometimes more humane to kill the creature, which conflicts with my morals....
I've seen a similar instance with a common gull at Southend with a its foot tangled in fishing line along with a rock the size of a child's fist. It landed on the pier with it's leg dangling uselessly over the edge before flying off and slowly losing height before the rock snagged water and caused it to splash land. It seemed to be able to keep itself above water but who knows how long it lasted. Such a pointless bloody shame.
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