5/27/2010
THE PIGEON
By:Sir Teymur Roshdi
Copyright-2010-Teymur Roshdi
This was my first close encounter with the life of pigeons. Before that I was only witnessing their moves, layings and flights from a distance and just occasionally , but this time I got involved in their life without having looked for as if some invisible hand put them in front of me and asked for help. I should mention that the flat I live in is located in a building surrounded by three other ones which constitute a court-yard where all the kitchens and bedrooms windows of the three buildings are face-to-face and they all have a narrow or wide outside border , ideal for the sitting and flight of birds, almost exclusively the pigeons.Also the air-condition and heater pipes of the flats and all the
small and hidden spaces they created have been for years the nestles of these pigeons, the best habitat for their different species,big or small, warm in the cold days of winter and cool in the hot days of summer.
Through years I used to hear the voices of these birds, almost the same pleasant, warm and magic, coming from the adult pigeons and a sort of warbling coming from the little ones. I guess that they might have multiple nuances only perceptible for them: the call for love, the expression of joy, the need of the little ones for food and so on. But these 'songs' are always impressive early in the morning at dawn,like a delightful choral song mixed with the noises of their wings, flying here and there as if the were all performing a symphony in the praise of the morning or rather in the praise of light and life.
That morning in the last week of April, when I was preparing my coffee
in the kitchen, I noticed two pigeons struggling hardly on the narrow outside border of the kitchen window. First I thought that maybe they are fighting
and will leave after a while. But the struggle continued and I approached the window. At my astonishment I saw the shape of a fast-done nestle the both pigeons were working at with the tiny stems they had found, putting and arranging them with meticulousity on a very small space of the border between the heater pipe and the window. They left after this endeavour.
Suddenly I remembered that many times in the past I noticed the struggle of pigeons on this border, but never I could imagine that maybe they were trying building a nestle there, but they all failed given the unsafety of the place which had nothing stable to resist in front of the heavy rain, snow and terrible winds and hurricanes or escaping the danger of the bigger pigeons or the crows who came in this back-yard space time to time.
I began thinking about this event and supposed that maybe all the safe places for nestling were occupied and these poor ones came here out of
an emergency. Gradually my concern increased and I decided to help them if by any chance it was a matter of emergency.
Accidentelly I had a small old rustic basket made of stems I used as a decor and it had a shape and size suitable for a pigeon to rest or to lay in. It could full the narrow space between the heater pipe and the border
of the outside wall. So without any hesitation I took the basket and embed it in the appropriate place, but because I couldn't leave it so without fixing it strongly somewhere I took two long shoe laces and tied them up, one arround the heater pipe and the basket, the other to the basket and
a spoon I kept inside after closing the window. Now I was sure that the basket was stable and impossible to be shaken or displaced by some wind, stormy weather or hurricane.
I didn't have the least idea of the purpose of this basket for the pigeons, neither if it would be used at all. I ignored the project of those pigeons,
but I just followed my instincts to help the nature to bear its 'fruits'. I was satisfied with my work even though it was a waste, but if I was not wrong I had contributed in the protection of the animal life.
Until the afternoon, not any sign of the pigeons and because I had some shopping to do, I went out and spent almost two hours in the market and the streets. On my way to coming back at home I took the long quiet pavement bordered by adjusted bushes and the poplar trees. The soft wind of April was caressing my face and I could smell the perfum of the
leaves and hearing the song of the sparrows on those trees.For a moment I closed my eyes to feel better the 'soul' of this beautiful spring afternoon. Suddenly, while I was walking, an adorable little cat appeared from the bushes. Automatically I stopped and began looking in its wonderful green eyes and its lovely face and whispered some lovely words with a voice
which reflected all my emotions and love for this magic creature.Its fur was a mixture of orange and black stains, few minutes were spent so and the cat began expressing itself by a soft mewing and then came close to me and started turning around my feet as if it felt my affection and love.The communication between me and the cat has been established and in a second I noticed that we were became one soul.The cat was in good shape and nothing signaled me that maybe it was starving, beside in my shopping bags I had nothing edible to let me suppose that maybe the
cat was attracted by the smell of food.On the other hand I knew that in that quarter, the owners of houses used to feed the street cats and the birds. I began walking and at my astonishment I saw the cat following me still mewing with its tiny lovely voice and I continued talking with him or her. I walked a long path and the cat was still behind me. The idea of adopting
a street cat was not my style and my way of life because I had such a great respect for all sort of animals that I never liked to 'enslave' a pet in a small flat and making it my property just for my own pleasure.I loved and adored the animals but in their usual habitat and in their freedom.For almost one kilometer the cat followed me and then I stoped talking to and passed to
the other side of the street leaving the bushes behind me and the cat disappeared from my sight.
Once at home, I looked at the kitchen window and amazed I noticed the pigeon resting in the basket. My feelings and emotions at that moment were indescribable. I just closed my eyes and whispered:"OMG!". I couldn't believe it. My joy and delight were beyond any verbal expression. I approched carefully the window and I noticed a pigeon who appeared
to me a bit fat because all its feathers were bristling and I hadn't the least idea of the reason of that, even I didn't know that if it was a male or a female, I just asked myself what is she or he doing and why the pigeon took this shape. I left the pigeon at its own and and kept myself busy to make some coffee and comforting myself with the feeling that my basket had at least been useful if only for the resting of some pigeon and the hope that maybe it would be used for better than this. But half an hour later at my surprise I noticed that the pigeon disappeared, so I went
close to the window and looked inside the basket : what I discovered in the basket was the most precious thing I could find or have in all my life. It was priceless and had more meaning to me than the entire wealth and
jewels of the whole world. Thas was a tiny white and bright egg of pigeon. Now I realized that the pigeon was a female and her shape and bristling feathers was just because of her 'labour' to lay an egg. Also I understood that the struggle of the pigeons that morning for making a nestle was a case of emergency and the both parents were worrying for that and certainly they didn't find a better place than my old rustic basket fixed carefully there. After a while the female pigeon came back and lay down on the splendid egg I considered a 'masterpiece', and she became my
favorite 'artist' and the 'heroine' of this story.
My heart has been invaded by an unprecedented joy and happiness. What an incredible sensation of being involved randomly in the life of living creatures without looked for, as if the nature called for help and it knocked at my door and I was pleased and delighted that I could play this role and being useful. The hours I spent
that evening until late after midnight were exclusively dedicated to this mother pigeon and her observation, she remained moveless and thoughtful in the basket.
In bed , all my mind was full of the consecutive events of that memorial day. I was experiencing a kind of joy that only children are able to feel,
I had the impression that I was reborn and everything in the universe was smiling and was happy. I remembered the cat who followed me in the afternoon and suddenly I did like to interpret it as a good sign, as if that cat was a messenger of some invisible universe who was greeting me, now my encounter with that cat made sense and I tried to inlay it in the frame of that happy day. I always knew that since my childhood I had a special connection with all the features of the 'existence', the universe,
the galaxies, the moon, the stars which blinked me when I was sleeping outdoor, the montains, the rivers, the seas and oceans, the vegetation, the wild nature and all sort of animals. Also I knew that I could have a silent emotional communication with animals and understand them better than the humans. But because of my way of life in a big city , any contact with the nature and the animals has been cut , and god knows how much I missed and miss it. But the appearance of the pigeon at my window blessed my heart and I thought about the potentials of life. The egg that pigeon laid was just a potential pigeon, maybe in the 'invisible world',
all the features of living creatures are just a potential which could never
be incarnated. Then I asked myself if I hadn't fixed that basket on that tiny border, and if despite of everything the pigeon laid her egg on a fast- made occasional nestle, and if the winds of April threw it away , does the egg would be perished forever? Or it would be registered somewhere in the memory of the universe?Suddenly I realized that nothing is wasted or perished in this world or this universe because what matters is the 'Idea'
of the pigeon which is imprinted in the 'invisible world'.Not only that egg or its parents-pigeons could never 'exist' in the visible world but also all of us, humans,animals,nature and everything visible could never took shape and be 'incarnated', then I concluded that there is a sort of connection, or a portal between the visible and invisible world and they
just 'ARE'. With this idea and perception I got I could sleep peacefully that night and when in the morning I woke up , I surprised a smile on my lips.
2
The next morning, the first thing I did was going in the kitchen to visit the mother pigeon. She was resting peacefully in the basket looking at some unknown point in the courtyard space. I felt comforted that everything was allright for her. Then I began asking myself about her feeding and also about the male pigeon. Until this moment I didn't know that among pigeons, the male and female lay down on the eggs at their turn. I just knew that when I saw at noon, a slimer pigeon coming on
the border while the fat one who was the female was still lying down on the egg. Suddenly the latter flew and left me astound because I found
in the basket not only a single egg but also another one and I thought that during the remained hours of the last day she laid the second egg. I found this wonderful and marvellous. Quickly the arriving new pigeon went into the basket and laid down on the eggs. Surprised I came online to find out the manner and the behaviour of the pigeons and I learned that among them , both parents lay down on the eggs until the hatching of the little ones.
This new founded 'family' outside of my kitchen window became a subject of a 'biological observation' for me and sometimes I spent hours to study all the details of their shape, colour of feathers, their least movement and distinguish the difference between the shape of the female and the male. Then in a moment when the both parents were absent for few minutes, out of ignorance I soaked a slice of bread
in the milk and put it near the basket with the hope that maybe they wouldn't have flying far to feed themselves, but I didn't pay attention that they needed to fly and move away for a while to find seeds and also to have some physical excercices, because throughout days, almost a week, I noticed that at nights there was always a pigeon laid down on the eggs, so I deduced that because they never leave alone the eggs
specially during the whole night ,consequently they needed to move and to fly the day .(Also they never billed my soaked slice of bread!)
The come and go of the parent pigeons lasted for two weeks and when I observed the two eggs in the few moments of absence of the parents I began worrying about them because I expected some developpment in the eggs but nothing at all and they seemed to me even smaller and I asked myself if by any chance they were 'alive' or not. I learned that the pores in the shell of the eggs permitted the exchanges of gazes or something between them and the pigeons when they were lying down on the eggs , but I wondered how these tiny eggs would hatch out. I felt a bit disappointed because I had already noticed in the laying of the pigeons on the side of my bath- room window, with almost a meter of distance that the baby pigeons appeared after seven or ten days , but this case seemed to me too
long and I asked myself if the eggs were not already 'dead'. On the other hand because I witnessed and realized the great intelligence
of these creatures,(if it didn't overpass the human 'intelligence' by all mean), I comforted myself that if the eggs were spoiled or 'dead', certainly the parent pigeons would know it , and if they still lay down on the eggs , that means that the eggs are alive.
3
At the eighteenth day , my desperation transformed into a marvellous joy when I found two tiny grey 'things' in the basket.All the labours of
the pigeons and all my concerns born fruits.That was a feast for me , an unexpected and incredible event, and now I had to worry about the life and the process of their development : would they grow up normally ? would they resist the stormy weather of the April?What
if the rain harms the parents and the babies?Would all of them resist the terrible hurricanes of those days?Wouldn't they be injured or eaten by the other big pigeons or some crows?...Lot of unexpected accidents could change the train of life of this pigeon family. What
could I do apart waiting and observing and helping if it was necessary.
The days after this happy birth were spectacular at the same time full of concern and all sort of anticipations. The parents were continuing their lay down on the 'babies' and I asked myself how could they
breath under the weight of the parent, but I already knew that nature was more intelligent than me and it provides all sort of care to protect these new born tiny creatures. Another day I surprised the mother (I still don't know if the task of feeding the babies is the duty of the female pigeon exclusively, or the male contribute too because at the moment of the feeding I couldn't distinguish which one is doing the exhausting
work) endeavouring hard to 'vomit' the 'milk' stocked in her stomack in order the babies could 'eat' it with their bill.This task seemed to
me a hard one and the pigeon was doing that so seriously and so carefully that I praised the nature , the animal life and their motherhood. The animals are so within the nature and so a genuine part of it that not the least error is committed. Their instincts and their feelings are designed with such an austere discipline that nothing could disturb its process and its rules unless the accidents or the intervention of the humans.
After a week , those tiny grey 'things' took a credible shape of a baby bird. Meanwhile, at each opportunity I took some photos and video. You can see the photos at the end of this book, they follow
the progression of this event, since the first day of that week of April when the mother pigeon laid an egg until the mid-May when those eggs became two wonderful healthy and happy grown up pigeons who could fly and leave my basket 'their homeland' or 'birth- place'.The whole process lasted exactly 34 days.
Finally I should mention that during all the days of this April-May, we had an unprecedent stormy weather , not only a usual spring stormy weather but rather multiple hurricanes.The hurricanes were sometimes so aweful and horrible that at each
moment I felt that maybe the whole building and the buildings arround would be inhaled or swallowed by the vaccum, their strenght shook my flat in a way that it seemed
like an earthquake.I didn't worry for my life but I worried for the pigeon family in the basket while the 'babies' were still helpless and the parents were taking care of them and feeding or lying down on them.
I noticed at these fearful moments that the heater pipe and the basket were shaken by the hurricane, but the pigeon parent was lying down peacefully in the basket without any worry because she or he was there protecting the babies. Fortunately nothing bad happened to them and
the baby pigeons grew up normally and began jumping on the border
of the basket and evaluating the board of their future flight. This evalua- tion took few days and one of them flew first and the next day the second one flew too. The day they flew ,finding the basket empty I cried a lot for having lost them , but at the same time I was happy that everything has worked well for them and they escaped all sort of accidents which could happen during those 34 days. That night I was very sad, as if a part of