Is it mad to be mates with a pigeon?

[AngelasLastEgg]

I’ve been working in the same place for three years and I’ve seen a very distinctive looking pigeon (mostly white with bits of grey on him) almost every day. I really love seeing him and called him Lord Westbourne as he has an aristocratic look about him (I suspect descended from dove gentry) and he lives on the corner of Westbourne Grove. I always see him in the same three places and have shared a bit of sandwich or cake with him on many an occasion.

Then he went missing for nearly a month, I was gutted and kept looking out for him every day. Well today he’s back!! Just bobbing around as if nothing had happened. Luckily I had a little pre-wrapped Madeline in my handbag that I was able to share with him and the couple of mates he was with.

I know I probably sound unhinged (it has been said) but I really love this pigeon having a slightly rough time at the moment trying to conceive and honestly seeing him today really warmed my heart.

Anyone else notice random birds or animals and look out for them?

Please, no pigeon haters. No one say ‘flying rats’. If you don’t share the pigeon love kindly move along

Not nuts at all, we're totally besotted with a female blackbird with half her tail feathers who lives in our garden.

We worry when we don't see her

Not at all.
I had a friend that was a worm (he was called Warren) I used to have to dig him up when I wanted to see him. The funny thing was he often looked quite different, sometimes quite long and other times shorter and fatter. We eventually moved away so I lost contact with him. I still miss Warren a bit though and do wonder what became of him.

Aww

We have a bird feeder outside our front window which has been adopted by at least a couple of wood mice.

DH and I have discussed what we do about such a display of filthy wildlife, in the end we decided that if we turned the stand around slightly they would only be visible to us. They remain our dirty secret from the neighbours

Our consumption of bird food has doubled since they moved in and DH gets very worried if they run out. They (and the rowdy sparrows) cheer me up every time I see them so I'm totally with you on your friendship with Lord Westbourne

We have a bird feeder ... which has been adopted by at least a couple of wood mice

Oh heck, I've had everything else but not mice yet - does this mean I'll soon have something else to feed??

One of my best moments in lockdown was going to the local lake and seeing the ducks op. They had no respect for social distancing

@Balaur

Aw this thread! I'm another one who gets attached to spiders living in our house. The latest was a small female spider in our bedroom who guarded her eggs religiously for several weeks, never moving or spinning a web. Then she died and I was strangely sad. I think it's normal for them to die after they've produced their eggs though. The eggs are still there, not yet hatched. I'm aware some most people will be aghast at my spider love.

Love spiders! I’ve been fascinated by a false widow love triangle in my bathroom. There were 2 males and a female, then 1 male and 2 females then finally a male and female. Who now seem to have eloped as I can’t find them anywhere! They were a very handsome couple. The male even let me lift him from the bath and put him back on the window by hand 😍

(I am so so sorry for anyone who needs to set fire to the Internet after reading that.)

@AngelasLastEgg that is the prettiest pigeon in all the land 😍

There’s a famous pigeon on Instagram. I can’t remember it’s sad tale, but it basically became adopted by a family. It’s glorious.
I’ll try and remember his name.

People were encouraged to keep pigeons in the 1st world war for food and messaging. Once the war was over they were released. Hence why there are so many in our towns, they learnt to be reliant on us. Relatives of glorious war hero’s.

Earlier this year our cat caught two baby pigeons, sadly one died and I put the other in a rabbit hutch over night. The next day I expected the worst but he hopped out and then spent the next few days hopping around our garden, and sleeping behind the shed. We saw his mum and dad around but didn’t know if they were feeding him. I got a bit obsessed watching and messaging an American pigeon fancier I found online. He told me birds are way cleverer than people, and he was right - eventually I saw him being fed, and although he couldn’t fly out of the garden he was quite safe. Gradually he started hopping up onto higher and higher things, eventually a six foot fence, then the top of the shed, then a garage outside our garden and then he was gone - off to do his pigeon thing. His mum and dad are still here though. His name is Buzz, and I miss him.

A lovely thread & just what I needed today, its really made me smile.
I'm great friends with the local crows, they're so clever & find different ways to steal the coconut from my bird feeder. They've become quite acrobatic & are now brilliant at balancing. If there's nothing to eat, a few of them wait on my garage roof until I go out with something.
My favourite one hangs himself upside down on the telephone wires with his claws & slowly absails down!! I honestly thought I was seeing things.
I used to love Animal Magic with Johnny Morris & still make up voices for any animal I see
I think everyone should have animal & bird friends.

Just to add, our cat now has ten bells sewn onto his collar, so he will never catch anything again. I thought the birds were safe because he’s huge and clumsy, but I was wrong. He sounds like a Morris dancer everywhere he goes.

I happened to be walking by a tree as a crow attacked a pigeon’s nest, knocking out one of the chicks and puncturing a hole in its side. We left the chick on the ground for several hours to see whether mum could help him, but she didn’t come near, so I took him home and brought him up. I called him Nut, because he’d fallen from a tree, and he lived in my shower cubicle (to keep him safe and it was easy to clean- he pooed a LOT) and came out into the garden on my shoulder for fresh air. It was fascinating watching him grow and learn.

When he was ready, I took him back to where we found him and he flew away without a backward glance .

I’m laughing at the image of the cat Morris dancer what a wonderful description!

ShinyRuby corvids are amazing, so intelligent!

My aunt has a blackbird that she feeds grapes to every morning. She throws them onto the lawn and he bounces over and picks them up and carries them away to eat them. If she's late, he waits outside the kitchen door. It's the cutest thing! We always ask about him when we visit.

I keep finding half eaten apples in my garden that I think are dropped by bird. Since you lot seem to know things about wildlife, what would be eating half an apple (big ones!) and leaving the rest in my garden? I don't have an apple tree so it's getting them somewhere else which is what made me wonder if they are flying overhead and drop them... Seems big for a bird though. Flying donkey...?

Last year I used to see one all the time I Westbourne Grove when I sat on the benches in the middle of the road bit by the florists/Daylesford.... Am ridiculously wondering if it is the same one now as the colourings were similar to the pic you posted!

@AngelasLastEgg

Oh User I’m so glad you could help Tony! I see so many pigeons with deformed feet and missing toes, probably from getting things caught around them, it’s so sad.

Yes I do think pigeons are noble. My gran used to say ‘pigeons are very brave, they won the war for us’ which is obviously not strictly true but I always hear her voice in my head when I see a particularly noble-looking one and wish I could tell her about Lord Westbourne!

Maybe it’s Lady Westbourne and your gran has come back to keep an eye on you!

This is a lovely thread! I've named all the cats who visit our garden regularly, even to the point I caught myself calling out to one by name once when I thought he was about to try to kill a bird - interestingly he did actually respond to me too.

We have 2 pidgeons that live fly into our garden every day. We call them Mr & Mrs Pete. One is fatter, we call him mr, the other more dainty. They're so funny. We love them and worry if we don't see them for a few days. DH puts out various nibbles for them everyday. We also have a few robins and again there's fat robin, like on a Christmas card and thin robin.
We also have a bald magpie, who the others ignore and we chat to him.
So no you're not mad atall we maybe though!!

When my Mum was in hospital pancreatic cancer I, and I hope she, found great distraction in the antics of ‘fat pigeon’ and his partner outside her window. He was a right porker, and came to complain if ‘his’ window feeder wasn’t filled up.

It was 6 years ago, and I’ve often wondered about the lifespan of pigeons, and what he was up to. We donated a bird feeding station to the hospital in her memory.... I hope offspring of fat pidge are still using it!!

You’re not nuts OP!!

Aww that’s so lovely OnceUpon. I’m sure it brought your mum some amusement to see the fat pigeon, if it was a woodpigeon I imagine it as one of those obese ones that waddle

Poor bald magpie! Nice you talk to him augustus so he doesn’t feel like a complete pariah!

Serendipity ooh it’s possible! I know just the spot you’re taking about but as it’s not on my route I’ve never seen him there. I do know he has a cousin who looks really similar, I see him up the top of Notting Hill though, usually pecking around outside the Prince Albert.

Flying donkey 🤣

We have a 'pet' Sparrow that comes to our garden - he's very loud! DD (7) has named him Jason! Even now we'll be lying in bed and hear him and DH will whisper 'can you hear Jason?!' We're all very fond of him!

Sparrows indeed have a very loud chirp!!

Not mad, I was mates with a pheasant who came to our garden, used to feed him bird seed which he liked. His name was Phil. He has sadly gone awol.