Day 177 - I Give You...Pigeons

part of a pigeon

Ironically, five minutes after taking a photo of a woodpigeon (whilst expressing my reluctance to use another photo of a woodpigeon), we came across this dismembered leg in the lane, and all of my good intentions went out of the window...

It's a bit of a grisly shot, I grant you, but it's not every day you see a pigeon leg that's been ripped off and discarded!

We often find clusters of pigeon feathers around here...as we did yesterday, strewn across our car park and lawn...coincidence?  

There weren't so many as to indicate a total kill and dismemberment, but certainly enough to suggest that something happened to a pigeon...and then we find a single pigeon leg 50m down the lane, the next day?

I think we can comfortably conclude that something did indeed happen to this woodpigeon - and that something is most likely to have been our local sparrowhawk, who we know frequents this area.

He's the most aggressive and successful raptor around here, and the primary predator of our local bird life.   Fast and agile, he can easily catch a slow, clumsy woodpigeon, if he catches him unawares.

Nature has conveniently provided a large local woodpigeon population, to support a solitary sparrowhawk.  The sparrowhawk takes weak and unhealthy pigeons, improving the general robustness of the local pigeon genepool in the process...and so both species thrive on the deal.

Nature always will bring systems back to balance...a point we should carefully consider, when assessing our interaction with the rest of the Earth's systems and lifeforms...we're not in a position to claim we haven't been warned!

But I digress...here's a solitary woodpigeon that was in the garden just before we found the foot.  The shot has a new melancholy now we realise she is probably missing her mate...

poor pigeon

In other news, when leaving work, through the dingy little corridor behind my desk, I spotted what appeared to be grass or hay up on the wiring looms high and left...

pigeons?!

Closer inspection revealed what appears to be the beginnings of a nest:

pigeon!!

Just at the top middle of this photo, there's a gap right through the wall, to the outside.  Anna is impressively knowledgeable on such things (as always), and thinks it's either pigeon, or starling.   

Now, pigeons are common around where I work, whilst starlings are depressingly scarce of late...so once again, it seems likeliest to be a pigeon...

What is it with all these pigeons today...even the dead and the absent found their way into my awareness...wtf?!

It feels unavoidable...one way or another, The Universe seems determined that I'm going to feature pigeons in my post today...

I'm a great believer in The Universe, so I can only respond...

as you command...I give you...

Pigeons!

:-)