The Robins Are Revolting
Got chatting to a Robin Redbreast earlier, something I usually avoid at all costs due to their small angry bird issues and, let me tell you, this one was proper angry, but for good reason as it turns out. Looks like the Robin has officially slipped down the rankings of birds most likely to visit your garden, and the Wood Pigeons are moving in. What the fuck? Woodies taking over the urban turf? Outrageous. Guess it was only a matter of time considering how dull it is in most rural areas…
Anyway, not that I didn’t trust him, despite his name being Eugene, but I looked it up and he’s right:
“When the BTO’s survey began in 1995, wood pigeons were the 11th most common bird; this year they have risen to number three, behind blackbirds and blue tits, but ahead of robins at number four.”
The Top 10 birds most likely to shit in your garden list now looks like this:
1 Blackbird
2 Blue tit
3 Wood pigeon
4 Robin
5 Dunnock
6 Great tit
7 Collared dove
8 Chaffinch
9 House sparrow
10 Greenfinch
Click here for the rest of the sorry tale.
After I managed to calm him down I told him that there really wasn’t much point in getting wound up seeing as there was fuck all he could do about it. Take on a Blue Tit, sure. Punch out a Chaffinch, maybe, but a Woodie? Forget it. I did promise, however, that if they start moving out of the gardens onto the streets, then it’s fucking war, which seemed to make him feel better.
In the meantime, I remain vigilant and will be watching out for an increase in scenes like this:
A Woodie on the rampage.
Stuart – The Peanut Freak
Ok – so this is Stuart, and he loves the peanut. He loves nothing more than the peanut. In fact, he loves the peanut so much, he’s willing to risk the loss of a limb.
Here’s Stuart in action.
First, he targets the peanut seller:
Then, after a swift and accurate recce, he goes in for the kill:
Followed by…
The swoop. He lands…
… and sadly, on this occasion, finds himself nothing more than a plastic bag. Clearly no fucking use whatsoever.
However, never one to give up, he tries another angle:
Again, to no avail.
The moral of the story being: The peanut comes to those who wait.
Think on, Stuart.
A Pigeon Statue
Me and Elliot were strolling down by the river today on our way to do a bit of bin shifting. Top bin shifting spot of a weekend, especially when the weather’s nice. Anway, we spotted this total fuckwit. A policeman in a tutu standing on a box. What the fuck is the point of that? Freak.
So Elliot goes over and just stands next to him:
Totally still holding a perfect toe point. Fucking hilarious. Sadly no-one thought to chuck him even the smallest chip. Shame. It was a fine performance.
Pigeons Got It Good In… Iran
Death threats aside, looks like the pigeon got it well good over in Iran. In fact, looks like pigeons got it well good everywhere, apart from here. Check this out – a brilliant post on Dark Roasted Blend all about pigeon towers around the world. Kid you not. Seems pigeon shit was quite the commodity back in the day. Something worth considering perhaps as we enter a period of serious global economic decline? Wouldn’t that be a thing? I can see the headlines now – ‘World Economy Saved By Meteoric Rise In The Value Of Pigeon Shit’ or, ‘Pigeon Shit – The New Oil?’ Food for thought.
In the meantime – here’s what they look like on the outside:
No wonder the fuckers look chuffed. It’s positively palatial.
Here’s the interior:
(photo credits – Jadid Online)
Singles or doubles available, apparently. All with en-suite. Nice.
Anyway, he goes on to list towers in Egypt, Russia, France and Italy. Some great pics too.
Here’s the offering from good old Blighty:
Typically in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, and therefore no use whatsoever. Guess it’s the thought that counts. Anyway – go check out the post. It rocks, and may inspire some of you out there, particularly anyone who manages large building sites, to spare a thought for the pigeon. If you happen to find yourself with some leftover bricks and a slate or two, how’s about popping up a wee pigeon tower? Nothing fancy, just somewhere warm and cosy for the local pigeon community?
Cheers for sending me the link, Ian!
Here’s somewhere else the pigeon got it good – New York. The mighty Annie Mole of Going Underground is there at the mo. She said I should get my arse over pronto. 24 hour food on tap, and looks like the sun shines too. Bring it on. That said, as per my previous post on the Big Apple, the availability of food 24/7 is not always a good thing…
Anyway, she took some great pics for me:
Either the pigeons over there are very small, or the statues are massive. Either way, were statues ever to take their revenge, this dude is clearly ominously close to being eaten alive.
Now I think this guy is actually really small…
Cheers for the pics, Annie! Nice one!
The Pigeon Lives To See Another Day
Bit like the millennium when everyone thought the world was going to get eaten by a giant cyber bug, yesterday was the day we were all supposed to disappear into one great big giant fucking black hole. Did we? Did we fuck.
Saying that, turns out there’s still time…
A load of scientists in Switzerland have built something called the Large Hadron Collider and are currently trying to fire these things called protons at eachother. Protons are smaller than atoms, and therefore invisible to the human eye. Proton dodging is, however, a popular recreational past time for the pigeon. My eyesight isn’t great so I’m a bit shit to be honest.
Anyway, firing protons at eachother has never been done before and is supposed to re-create the same thing that happened when the universe was made. Mental. So – best case scenario – it accidentally creates a whole new Universe. Bonus. Worst case – all it does is spit out another Switzerland. Ok – so there’d be a few more ski resorts to choose from, but that’s about it. The bit they kept a bit quieter is the vague possibility that a huge black hole would start up large enough to swallow the entire planet and everything on it therefore bringing the world of the pigeon to a rudely abrupt end, which would be a shame.
Risky business all round. Whole thing has cost £4.4 billion – kid you not. Far as I can gather, it’s one big underground ring 17 miles long, which begs the question – why didn’t they just use the Underground? Granted you’d have to seal off stations so the cheeky protons couldn’t escape, but firing protons at eachother using, for argument’s sake, the Circle Line, has got to be a damn site more cost effective. I’d say definitely cheaper than £4.4 billion. Surprise, surprise, turns out the yanks have stumped up a fair wad. Funny that seeing as they’re further away from the whole thing than anyone else. Probably hoped that by the time the black hole got to America, it might be full up. Everything and everyone else would be in the black hole, apart from America. Bet that’s the plan.
Like I say, we’re still here, but they haven’t actually collided protons yet. Not as such. They’ve fired a couple of beams at eachother, but nothing has actually ‘collided’ per se.
So, this afternoon I went out and about asking a couple of pigeons what they’d do if word got out that the world was about to end at, say, midnight. Asked them what they’d do for the rest of the day if this was the last one they were going to get.
First off, I asked Henry. This is Henry:
Henry said he’d probably go get himself a nice massage. Get rid of some of that neck tension. Then, more than likely, he’d fly into the nearest Pizza Express and tuck into the the first pizza he saw, especially if there was one with a pepperoni topping.
Then I asked Will and Kathleen. This is Will and Kathleen:
In all fairness, I think they’d just had a bit of a fallout.
She said she’d liked to go grab herself a bit of ‘me time’, whatever the fuck that is. He said he’d go shag the first sort he found and then sink his beak into a pint of creamy Guinness. Fair play.
Not sure what I’d do. Maybe have one more go at ‘The Eye Game‘ for old time’s sake? Not done that in ages.
Sadly, I don’t think we’d get much warning, so all this is pretty much by the by.
Pigeons – Both Positive, And Negative
These two stories got sent to me. One, a totally positive take on all things pigeon. The other, couldn’t be more negative if it tried, and it does. Jesus. So – as I reckon it’s always best to end on an up, here’s the down to kick things off. Sent to be by msai. It’s from some Aussie site called Feral and Bird Management, which kinda says it all. First off, and this is a fucking outrage, they compare us not only to the Crow, but the Sea Gull. The Sea Gull? What the fuck? As I’ve stated many times before, the Sea Gull is probably the dullest most uncultured bird on the planet. Apart from anything else, they have no sense of humour whatsoever, hence we call them ‘Dulls’. As for the Crow, enough said. Then, and check this out, they say we carry over 12 different diseases. They only manage to list 4 of them which, judging by the names, are clearly made up:
Histoplasmosis: A systemic fungal disease which affects the lymph nodes and the trachea and bronchi of the lung. Microscopic spores of this disease are contained in the dust particles of dried out faeces and are transmitted to humans when they become airborne via ceiling vents or air conditioning vents etc.
Aspergillosis: Another fungal disease that affects the ears, sinuses and lungs and may cause lesions and skin infections.
Toxoplasmosis: An influenza type disease that has serious debilitating consequences and is particularly dangerous to pregnant women.
Encephalitis: A viral disease, which can be transmitted to humans from the pigeon by mosquitoes.
Fuck’s sake. If we carried all these, don’t you think we’d have been extinct by now? Anyway, turns out they’re only flogging their anti-pigeon gear, surprise, surprise, which explains the reference to us hanging near ‘air-vents’. Had they asked me, I would have told them that no pigeon likes to sit anywhere fucking near an ‘air-vent’ due to the fact it sucks in air. Kind of like sticking your arse on the end of a vacuum cleaner. Why would anyone want to do that, particularly when arse feathers are easy enough to loose as it is, especially for the older pigeon. First thing to go are the arse feathers, and baldness of the arse is never a good look.
Then, to top it all, they clearly have no grasp of the English language either:
“Call us for a obligation free quote”, surely it’s ”an‘ obligation free quote’? Fuck wits.
Hilarious.
You can read the full story here.
Cheers for sending it, msai!
So – that’s the negative over and done with, now for the positive. This was sent to me by Tantie. It’s a story reported by John-Paul Flintoff on Timesonline that clearly outlines one of the obvious benefits of pigeon shit. A load of monks discovered that crayfish love the shit.
“Down below (the dovecote), the guano-enriched water encouraged substantial numbers of crayfish, in turn providing the monastery with useful protein”
Nice.
Maybe, as John-Pual suggests, they stuck a couple in the fountains in Trafalgar Square along with a load of cray, Londoners could benefit too? Imagine it: “Roll up, roll up – get your fresh crayfish here courtesy of the London pigeon”. Be fucking great for PR. People would love us. Probably go down a bomb in the world the cray, but who gives a shit about cray? What have they ever done for us? Maybe I should contact Boris Knobon? See what he thinks…?
Cheers for sending it, Trantie!
Finally – I know I bang on and on about the weather, but I thought I’d show you why. This is what it does to the pigeon when it’s both wet, and cold:
The name’s Bernard. Came all the way down to London from Leicester on a weekend mini-break, and gets pissed on. No idea where to go, so he ends up under a tree. Poor fuck. I invited him back to mine tonight. Least I’ve got a small overhang to sit under. It’s not often I take on another ledge-mate, even just for the night. Kipping next to Mart is bad enough. Saying that, if he snores, it’s back to the tree he goes. Nothing worse than a snoring pigeon. Another instant dismissal will be the cracking of another unfunny joke. I’ll put the first one down to nerves. Any more and he’s off.
Cardiff – All A Bit Of A Wash Out
As expected, Cardiff was all a bit of a wash out – see post below. A total and utter water everywhere type wash out. Pissed it down every day. In fact, I think that was what they meant by ‘nautical music’. Just music, but in loads of fucking rain. Managed to neck a few chips but generally, frankly, it was a bit dull. Hooked up with Welsh Geoff, a mate of Welsh Dave’s, who decided to give a fine demonstration as to why it is pigeons really shouldn’t drink coffee.
Here he is before:
And here he is again having dipped his beak for only the smallest of moments:
Jesus. Running around like a total mental patient he was with this insane look in his eye.
Then, to make matters worse, he spent the rest of the afternoon talking really fast at every pigeon in sight about his banging head.
Anyway, ended up staying away a bit longer than expected, hence the lack of post. Mart said he wanted to take in Bath on the way home, so we did. Lovely place.
In the meantime, while we were pissing about in Wales, this breaking news got sent to be my loads of you. Cheers everyone! Shame I didn’t get to post it when it was breaking, just finding any sort of cyber caff in Cardiff willing to entertain a load of pissed up pigeons was never going to happen.
Check this out though – Pigeons getting done for drug smuggling in Bosnia.
“We do not know what to do with the pigeon, but for the time being it will remain behind bars,” Pojavnik said.
Serious stuff. Poor fuck. Gonna do some digging now I’m back tho to see if this is the reason behind the sharp rise in the number of Bosnian pigeons knocking about in town, particularly in the Acton area…
Pigeon Blog 