A case for the commoners: Rock Doves

If it weren’t
for iridescence,
her wounds would make for
better classroom lectures
than life’s lessons.

Many I know consider rock doves / pigeons to be a major public nuisance. These feral birds are accused of being uninvited and parasitical guests to cities. They are despised for being noisy and intrusive. Other items in the list of accusations include spreading diseases, destroying air-conditioner units and pooping just about everywhere.

Rock doves scavenge for food, as well. At public parks, inside garbage dumps and near food-loading docks. In fact, perhaps only their iridescent feathers and salmon-pink feet separate them from house crows – another despised residential bird in my city.

The reason I may think that is because I belong to the alpha species. One that has been making planet earth as uninhabitable as it possibly could be.

It is important to know that once upon a time the rock doves lived only in rocky coastal cliffs. Far away from human beings. Since then they haven’t grown invasive just to satiate some organic greed. They have never instigated wars to occupy land for personal gains. Or blurred the lines between the wilderness and vast living spaces.

Only we have.

What they have done is, like every other species of birds, adapt to a rapidly-failing ecosystem. One that we have changed so much to satiate our greed and nihilism.

The ancestors of rock doves used their navigation abilities to serve us throughout history. And yet now we find it fit to complain about how they poop on our vehicles and make a lot of noise.

The hypocrisy is that we have been pooping on every single species, including our own, with dubious consistency. And with far worse consequences too. Let’s not blame these birds for behaving how we forced them to.

“We are in fact witnessing the early days of a sixth mass extinction. Sixth of its kind in the past 500 million years”

Here’s how you can get rid off the ones in your houses without being a meanie about it

A few months ago, I had written about the different types of pigeons/doves I have spotted

Stop, hug and roll

(Photographs – Chennai)