[Mikhail_Edoshin]

We have a pigeon on our balcony. We picked him when he was only a week old and now he lives with us. Our balcony is isolated from the street, so every morning we open a window there so Theodor (his name; although we're not sure, maybe he is she), so Theodor can go out and fly. In the evening he returns; sometimes he gets stuck somewhere due to rain (they do not fly in the rain) until dark (they do not fly in the dark either) and returns in the morning. We worry a little when this happens.

He is not strictly a pet, we try not to turn him into one and hope he will find a spouse in the spring. In the meantime we'll build him a small house that may serve as a nest if he is so inclined. We've read a few books about them and joined a chat of people who keep pigeons, en masse or just adopt a pigeon who needs it.

We do not do that often but about once a week we catch him and sprinkle with a dust against parasites. Pigeons are very pleasant to touch. The feathers have a silky feeling and they are warm, warmer than people.

There are a lot of excrements, of course. We covered the balcony with cardboard to protect and wear a dedicated pair of slippers. Yet we see these little piles with satisfaction because they mean that Theodor eats well and is healthy. By the way it must be a good fertilizer; old books say it was a source of income for the pigeon keeper.

So maybe you can make friends with pigeons instead of shooting them. The balcony is too small anyway (see "The pattern language"). Give them a bath (they love to bath), make them a feeder. (You can strategically position it so that excrements will mostly fall outside.) They are very lovely creatures.

[yegle]

> Pigeons are very pleasant to touch. The feathers have a silky feeling and they are warm, warmer than people.

My first language is not English, so I learned this late: pigeons are perceived as dirty birds due to its presence in urban environments, but they are the same species of doves which is perceived as clean. In my first language they are just called "pigeon" and "white pigeon".

[zrn900]

> pigeons are perceived as dirty birds due to its presence in urban environments, but they are the same species of doves which is perceived as clean

The delirious doublespeak of the English public discourse, that is. You dont see it in the rest of the world, ie, in the Mediterranean, even in Europe. There are gigantic plazas with flocks of pigeons that live there as a policy because people dont want to see plazas without pigeons.

For some reason, the English public discourse is hostile to living creatures - the same kind of 'flying pest' rhetoric is being applied to the colorful indian ringnecks that populated the ghastly, damp English public parks. Its like hating things is a cultural trait in the English public discourse, for some reason. Makes one understand where the English tabloid press that spreads hate to everyone comes from.

[assemblyman]

100% agree. In south asia and south east asia (maybe other parts too), it's very common to have insects like spiders, lizards, local bugs, ants inside apartments and houses. No one bats an eyelid and, if we felt, a larger insect was trapped and couldn't make it outside, we would just put them on paper tissue and take them outside.

In the US though, I frequently find people freaking out if they see any insect. There's a zero-tolerance policy for any living creature indoors. They are almost always killed. It leads to a disconnect between human beings and any other life. Other creatures are always a distant presence in zoos or on TV although exceptions are made for pets.

This shows up in language too. Instead of saying, a bear was killed for straying into settled human land or breaking into a house, the phrase used is "the bear was euthanized" (still accurate) or "the bear was destroyed" as if it was a piece of furniture. To contrast this with, say India, even tigers and elephants that kill, are mostly tranquilized and moved deep into a forest. This is very alien in the US where the trigger-happy reaction is to kill the animal.

[zrn900]

> There's a zero-tolerance policy for any living creature

Indeed, that's a good way to put it. I havent noticed it before. Its not only pigeons, parrots etc. Its all living creatures. It looks like the Angloamerican culture literally hates independent living creatures.

[wiml]

In English there is also the name "rock dove" for pigeons (but I think technically rock doves are the wild ancestors of both white doves and city pigeons).

[yapyap]

Huh, I wonder if this is an universal thing because over here in western europe i dont mind pigeons just flying around

[card_zero]

Correct! Keep it up and soon you will have baby pigeons, several times a year until you run out of names and emotional capacity to worry about them all. The babies are kind of terrifying-looking but they fledge in a month or so. Sometimes pigeons take baths together with their pigeon spouses and they wash each other by splashing, which is cute. A small pigeon nestling in your cupped hands in winter is marvellously warm. They are domesticated animals, of course, but when we all stopped putting their numerous babies into pies we stopped being friendly to them too, and now they're all feral. Is that a better deal for the pigeons? I doubt they worry about it either way.

[hermitcrab]

Charles Darwin was a 'pigeon fancier' (not as dodgy as it sounds), so you are in good company.

[goopypoop]

Darwin ate pigeons, owls, tortoises etc.