London's Worst Ledges

The sun was shining again this weekend, so I decided to pick up on something I started last year. A guide by a pigeon for the pigeon to all the best ledges in London, called London’s Best Ledges, part of Brian Pigeon’s Guide to London. Any pigeon visiting the City on either a long or short stay basis after a decent ledge, look no further, or that was the general idea anyway.

So Mart and me set off, cam at the ready, and decided to go check out the ledges of Kings Cross. Mistake. Never seen such a dire collection in my life. Most unpleasant. Some of them didn’t even qualify as ledges, like this, for example:

Absolute shithole.

I asked the dude why it was he insisted on living somewhere like that when there were far better ledges to be found just up the road in Islington. Ledges like this:

Nice sunny aspect. South facing. Plenty of room.

Or how about this, The British Library:

It’s nothing but one big ledge, and it’s only about 2 minutes fly time from the soiled shop sign our friend called home.

Anyway, he wasn’t having any of it. Not even slightly:

Said it was none of my business, that he was quite happy where he was, and told me to fuck off, which I thought was a bit unnecessary. Last time I try giving any one on one ledge advice. Jesus. Forget it.

The whole event got me thinking tho… Why is it some pigeons are happy to spend their lives staggering about in their own shit? Personally,  I don’t get it. Ok, so I drop the odd one here and there. Who doesn’t? But to wantonly reject decent nearby stone based sheltered ledges in favour of something like that? Just plain baffling, and definitely worthy of further investigation.

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