… A customer came into the Chevron this evening and asked if we had any crackers. He told us of an incredibly friendly pigeon that was out in front of the store, how he had it standing on his shoulder. So I grab my camera to go out and get a picture of him with the pigeon on his shoulder, and the thing flies over onto my shoulder. I laughed, he laughed and then took a couple pictures of us
… Yeah, I thought the fun was over. Just barely through the door, before it can close behind me, the bird flies into the store and lands on my shoulder again. I walk it outside, over to the bushes by the air hose and put it on the ground there. It follows me
… Ok, one more time. I walk it down next to the building next door, leave it on the ground with more bread, and this time I try to trick it by going the wrong way, around this P.O.D.S.* thing in the parking lot. I kid you not, the thing flew right next to me all the way back to the store. Every time it would come in the store and start flying around, landing various places, until a customer came in and I’d get it on my shoulder. It would stay on my shoulder rather
… At this point I realized it wasn’t going away easily. So, rather than having it flying around freaking out customers, I left it on my shoulder and called Animal Control. I got about the same reaction as when I called them a few years ago to tell them I had a peacock in my back yard. “What?”, “You’re kidding.”, “A pigeon?” and “Never heard that one before.” I think they finally decided that it would be fun to arrest that bozo claiming to be the 
… I thought it would be only a few minutes, figured there couldn’t be that many animal emergencies on a Friday night, so I actually helped customers with the bird on my shoulder. Now that was funny, some of the reactions were hilarious, and fortunately nobody got freaked out by it. But after waiting about a half an hour I kind of got tired of it walking back and forth across by shoulders, and 
… Animal Control showed up about another half hour later, laughed when I showed her the bird and it climbed right up onto my shoulder. When she left to bring it down to the shelter to let it free there, she said “and hopefully it won’t find it’s way back here.”
… Oh, and yes, it did soil my shirt.
*P.O.D.S. - Personal On Demand Storage, those one-car garage sized storage units they haul over and dump on your property while you’re remodeling or moving or whatever.
8 comments:
Pigeon and bird droppings can cause serious injuries and also cause damage to the property. I have used bird spikes in walls of my building. They are really useful.
Okay, this story is as good as any I've ever told. But if someone wrote this into a novel, everyone would call it "unrealistic." You know that old saying about truth being stranger than fiction? Well, you just lived it.
Maybe you would've convinced animal control faster if you'd threatened to take home Mr. Pigeon and introduce him to your cat. (That would have solved the problem in a natural way.)
You should have kept it and taught with it in class! Then the students would have to pay attention ;)
I would NEVER have been so cruel as to think of taking it home and feeding it to my cat! That and I was afraid of it pooping in my car on the way home. But then again, Jo, if I could have trained it to poop on the more annoying students.....
You know pigeons are considered flying rats and carry disease.
Yeah, but it's been hundreds of years since the Bubonic Plague, maybe it's time for a comeback?
Well he certainly found a true pigeon lover! You aren't as great a pirate as Mem Fox writes about Tough Boris in her fabulous picture book, (although his parrot dies) but see what an exciting life you can lead just by going to work! I hope animal control put that cutie somewhere safe! Great story to wake up to! Thanks!
I am deeply saddened by this story. Every year people who have listened to the pest controal industries fear mongering trying to scare people into thinking that harmless innocent pigeons are heath hazards so that you will pay them to block them out of thier nesting sites on your property and take thier helpless young out of the nest and leave them on the ground to die. The truth is that pigeons and thier droppings are harmless to humans. Pigeons have a much higher body temperature than humans making it almost impossible for germs from a pigeon to survive in a human body. In fact pigeons and humans have been living together for thousands of years. They were domesticated by early humans and have proven exrteamly usefull to mankind since then. They saved more than 200 human lives by delivering messages on the battle field during ww1and 2. Because they are domesticated wild pigeons, ( the anscestors of escaped pets) are really not wild at all. Which is why they depend on us for food and shelter you dont see them out in the forest nesting in trees and eating insects no you see them nesting on buildings and eating what we drop. Back to the countless amounts of helpless nestling pigeons dumped onto the ground to die each year by the pest controal industry sometimes caring people pick them up and raise them. These pigeons raised by people are verry tame and see people as thier own kind making it difficult for them to survive in the wild. Your pigeon was probably an escaped pet pigeon. He was probably raised by people making him confused that once he had escaped or been released people no longer wanted him anound he was probably used to real food like seeds and dosent even see garbage like a hotdog bun as food. The poor felka was lost and starving and asking you for help humans are all he knows. In the wild he will easily be picked off by predators or swatted at and hurt by the next human he tries to befriend. This is shurley his fate if animal controal actually does release him. Or they might just euthenize him immediatley. After all they are just good for nothing vermin, right?
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