Pigeons

Last week, during the course of wage-earning duties, I found myself having to venture into the wilds of North Manchester. So I did copius amounts of internet research, double-checked timetables, loaded my chav-gun and set off. This blog is not about whining, so I won't mention the struggles I had with the GMPTE journey planner refusing to accept the place i was going to existed - that would be the path of another, lesser blog. But while i waited for the *right* bus at the *right* time at the *right* bus stop as it mysteriously failed to appear (the bus not the bus stop - even GMPTE aren't that bad..) I spotted a couple of pigeons.

The pigeons had spotted a sandwich crust on the floor about a foot away from a woman holding a loud conversation about what she'd said to someone about something. The first pigeon looked at the bread, bobbed up and down, edged towards it but decided to go for a crisp instead. The second pigeon got a bit further but then backed of when the woman shifted her weight. Then a third pigeon came along and, after looking at the crust, doing the usual bobbing around, thinking about it for 10 minutes (by which time my bus should have come an gone...resist! resist!) finally dived forward and got the bread. Which got me thinking.

The point is that pigeons who are bold get food while pigeons who still see humans as giant pigeon-killing gods do not. This can't be good - in evolutonary terms the pigoen with the most contempt for humans is the most likely to survive, therefore pass their genes along and tell their pigeon offspring that humans are just big walking crumb dispensers - I believe there's some kind of theory about this. So how long will it be before pigeons start just snatching sandwiches from people's hands? How long after that before they realise that it's much easier to pinch someone's sandwich if you peck their eyes out first? Then it won't be long before they start hanging around on climbing frames and the end of the world will soon follow.

I'm not proposing any action here - this blog is about asking easy questions not providing difficult answers - i'm not saying we should declare war, confiscate birdtables, arrest old women in the park for holding breadbags. I'm certainly not condoning vigilante action. I mean it takes millions of years for a species to evolve even a little bit right? So I'm just going to say that anyone who wishes to join me in the secure, pigeon-proof shelter that I'm constructing in the backyard will be more than welcome.