He’s gone and there is unspeakable emptiness in our room now. Nothing but silence is coming from the places we used to find him nesting, resting. Underneath the bed, up on the highest shelf, on the ceiling fan, in front of the mirror, in the grain bowl…
We’ve started missing every little thing about him from the dusty, powdery smell coming from his feathers, to constantly stepping in poop and disinfecting everything at least twice a day, having feathers flying around worse than on the first minutes of a pillow fight, always rushing back home where he waited to be fed, watching him grow fearless, developing instincts in front of our very eyes, getting accostumed to each other’s habbits, waking up first thing in the morning bitten by the ears, watching him nest on our pillow or breathe calmly on our chest…
But he was never ours to begin with. Such encounters between wild animals and humans are never to last long, for they are a little unnatural: birds belong in the air, from where the world looks less violent and cruel and humans must never interfere and take away their freedom.
I found this half tail, legs covered in hair little fellow three months ago behind a bench, outside my workplace and told myself that if my help was needed, he would still meet me there at the end of my shift. And he did. I took him home in a small box, light as a feather, probably hadn’t eaten anything in a long time. He looked paralysed by fear of my presence.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve been craving for a pet since I moved to London, as my experience with animals goes way back, starting from childhood when I would always be found among animals and birds, always saving ”something” or looking for ”something” to be saved. The only animal contact I’ve had here, is an old stray cat I always find sleeping on some warm car hood at any given hour, on my rare visits to the GP.
But there is nothing more painful than coming back home after saying goodbye to an animal that either went to Animal Heaven or back in nature among its peers, only to find the empty box you used to keep it in, their food bowl and little sad toys lying around abandoned, as is the little cloth you made from a still very wearable jacket to keep it warm and remind it of its mother. This, right here, is the saddest, most devastating thing for me to go through and it never gets any easier.
With an immense patience, Renato disentangled every single bit of hair off his legs but unfortunately two of his claws were permanently damaged by the lack of blood circulation and eventually fell off. Thanks to Renato’s countryside roots, I slowly found out a lot of things about raising, feeding and taking care of pigeons. Three days after his rescue, our little boy – as we call him – started to exhibit symptoms of every pigeon related disease there was (from early stages of Paramyxo, to Canker, Ornithosis, AdenoColi and so forth) or so it seemed, so Renato had to narrow them down to the most probable and we trated him for it after doing a lot of research, then bought everything from medicine to vaccines to shell grid, to help with digestion.
I remember looking for all sorts of hints to make me determine whether he was a “he” or a “she”, than him tap dancing all over the room floor with those incredibly warm legs (a pigeon’s body temperature is much higher than a human’s) and the first time he made those sounds they make when attacked – caused by us getting too close to him – and we got all emotional at the thought ”Oh! our little boy is growing up!”
Slowly, his uncontrollable fear of us, giant looking aliens, diminished and the first time him and I actually bonded, was in July, before I went to Romania. That morning, after Renato left for work, he flew from the shelf where he used to watch us from, straight on my pillow where he continued his usual preening, fluffing and stretching his feathers beauty ritual that birds have and repeat hundreds of times a day. It probably was his way of showing how much he trusted me. From then on, our strange looking friendship begun to grow and there were times he’d wait for me to get in bed all confortable, with the laptop on my belly and find the perfect moment to fly to me, fall asleep on my chest or play with my hair.
His moves were both hypnotizing and hillarious and would always make me stop and just watch him be. I didn’t know that watching a bird can be such a relaxing and joyful experience until this little guy came along. No wonder that for many, birdwatching is not only a delightful hobby to have, but it has somehow become an actual contest. It is incredible how happy this little thing made me.
Our greatest regret is that of not having taught him how to eat on his own, so we had to keep feeding him artifficially, at least twice a day, taking turns. Later we have been told that, since he was very young when he got separated from his parents and never saw other pigeons eating, it was a very normal thing to have happened. Should I mention that we even made him watch upclose videos of pigeons feeding themselves? That didn’t help much either.
We then realized that maybe we were keeping him here, with us still, out of selfishness rather than having his best interests at heart. Also, we had this trip to Croatia planned for the end of September and we couldn’t have possibly left him in that tiny room on his own. So we started to think of possible solutions, places we could leave him and decided upon either Hyde Park or St. James’s.
A whole day to be spent in the park, watching him readjust. Our plan was to draw a little red lipstick heart on his back to be able to recognize him from a distance and as the day approached, we got sadder and our little boy kept nesting himself a place within our hearts.
Renato saved the day again (this amazing man never ceases to surprise me!) and asked me to look for possible shelterers. We already knew that londoners and pigeons have a rather difficult relationship, as in londoners declared war and pigeons are doing their best to survive and repopulate after being attacked, poisoned and bruttaly killed in many other ways, called “rats with wings” and being treated as carriers of diseases. In London, one should not feed the pigeons, unless they are ready to pay a ridiculous amount of fine, if caught. We found an article about a nonprofit organisation (they are actually two middleaged sisters who take care of injured birds that are brought to their door and left in special cages that the two check four times a day with no possiblity or visitation right afterwards, but with the promiss of receiving messages regarding the bird’s condition when necessary or requested) that would take in any bird in need. We sent them a message and our number and received a call the next morning – it was raining and all members of the cutest and happiest disfunctional familiy were present, not knowing that those were to be our last moments together.
On the other side of the line, Vicky, also a pigeon lover as she describes herself – explained that Woody Allen is to thank for the “rats with wings” abomination as well as all the other clueless bastards who feel the same, that, indeed, no one could be trusted in taking care of our bird, so we had no chance but to take him to the shelter. There were so many things we hadn’t done and there was no more time. We got dressed, put all food and medicine in a bag and our little boy in a box and took him there. Together. The pain was excruchiating, but a little more bareable with him holding my hand. Our hearts broke into pieces at leaving him there, probably because of our selfishness. He will be fine, learning how to be a pigeon and, more importantly, how to eat on his own, by watching others. I cried like a baby today, like I never thought I would, so what has this little feathered creature done to us in just a few months?
We’ve all learned a little something from this experience. I learned something about myself but most importantly, I learned something about Renato and that is he will be the most amazing father. Ever. Pushing grains down that bird’s throat wass the sexiest thing he’s ever done. The patience, the warm gestures, the nurture, the love and…have I mentioned the patience? I’ve never felt more attracted to him than when he was feeding that little bird. As far as I’m concerned, this is an annoyingly overprotective broad you’re looking at, that will probably scar her children for life with her old lady kisses, lack of boundaries and excessive worrying, if the embarassment alone won’t determine them to commit suicide at a very young age. Plus, I turned out to be more selfish than I thought holding on to that little fellow as if he was ever mine. He wasn’t.
He was only there to show me that there is still much love to give. And hope. And freedom, as far as the eye can see.
Or maybe…I just need to make a baby.
In any case, we have been through an amazing journey, through ups and downs, hints and tips on parenting that we definitely still don’t have a clue about, a journey that was certainly needed in a city full of bankers and businessmen and young folks who only care about the coolest party outfits and expensive make up items, workers who have been turned to robots, with morgages and expensive rent to pay by the end of the week, or else they might as well pack their bags and leave, random people who haven’t decided who to vote for, an unusual journey at the end of which we still haven’t figured out who saved who.
