Thursday, February 25, 2010
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?
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
You see this pigeon?
I fucking hate it.
I despise it. I wish it were dead. A bit strong you may think, but it's only a pigeon and I will of course explain why dear reader. Now I'm not one for going around wishing animals or people dead (excepting the odd octogenarian African despot of course), but this pigeon really gets on my bloody tits.
There are plenty of pigeons around here and they spend their time breeding and impersonating other bird species. Why only yesterday I was trying to get on some funny looking Grey Plovers picking their way along the Thames when a dark morph Hobby followed a GBB up the river, just after the Cuckoo was bombing around Wandsworth Park. Except I didn't. Because they were stupid coloured pigeons being bastards. But this one is special. Because it is white. Because it is white and it flies around and it has black bits on it. The initial thing that I see is WOW! Followed a millisecond later by 'oh for fucks sake you stupid fucking pigeon - go awaaaaay!'. It variously impersonates Little Gulls, Little Terns, Pied Kingfishers, Avocets, Owls, Gyrfalcons etc etc and it really winds me up. It also has a habit of flying across my field of view when the optics are up to my eye. Which really winds me up even more. Bastard.
See it again?
Now he's got a friend. And guess what? This pigeon has lovely white spots near the end of it's wings. Just like a fucking Nightjar. Stupid bloody bastard pigeons.
Go awaaaaay! Shoo! Go on - geddout! Bastards.
