Summer Guests
Yes. I know.
This is my messy balcony.
We are up on the fifteenth floor with a very nice sunset view, but we rarely spend time out there and prefer to enjoy the view from the air-conditioned side of the windows. The nearby downtown core has crop-dusted an amazing accumulation of exhaust and greasy street grime on everything, and the overhang from the balcony above prevents the rain from making an impact. The result is a layer of ickiness that nobody wants to sit on or in. The deserted balcony has become, to our shame, kind of a dumping spot. Here you can see an old arm-chair, some wood and an old bucket.
Fortunately none of this is viewable from the street. It is fifteen floors up after all. This means, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, we figured we wouldn’t have to worry about that stuff for a very long time.
You would think geese would shy away from the noise and bustle of downtown, but they are all over the place in the spring. You can even see them walking on the sidewalk and they don't fly away when you come near.
During the spring and early summer geese and pigeons often stop for a breather on our balcony railing, and it’s kind of cool hearing them honk or coo in the morning before a fluttering of wings announces their departures. The geese move on fairly quickly, but sometimes the pigeons will outstay their welcome, so we keep a little squirt bottle handy. The water doesn’t seem to hurt them, in fact some pigeons kind of like it and will stand there and get sprayed a bit before taking off.
Today a nice looking speckled pigeon did just that. I sprayed and sprayed and she didn’t leave. In fact she hopped down off the railing and strutted across the carpeting. I thought, “man that is one tough pigeon.” It turns out she had made a home under our armchair.
You lookin' at me?
This would not be a big deal except that pigeons process a lot of bugs into fertilizer during the summer and they are not terribly picky what gets fertilized. As you can see, this pigeon had been hard at work for quite some time. It’s funny because I should have been thinking, “wow, that is a lot of poop.” Instead I thought, “boy, that is a nice green.”
But beauty is a limited currency, so I sprayed some water under there. You can see the evidence of my bombardment on the little plant pot. The brave pigeon refused to budge. When I adjusted my position to get a better angle on the water, I saw why there was little chance of her leaving any time soon.
There was the beginnings of a nest and two tiny eggs under the armchair. It was very cute, but also very sad. Those eggs were sitting on some very thin carpeting which covers the balcony concrete which drops to nearly zero at night. Those eggs would have very little chance of hatching. I imagined they were probably already toast. Who knows how long they’d already been there?
That is one pathetic looking nest.
Not wanting to shoo away a pigeon who is hanging in there against all hope, I have decided to leave her alone and let her have a go. Who knows? Maybe those eggs will turn out after all. I don’t know how long it takes pigeon eggs to hatch, but until then it looks like we have a summer guest.
Warming the eggs.
Once she is gone and I have a chance to get out there, I guess it will be time to clean things up. I will probably put a plastic owl out there, too. It supposedly works like a scarecrow. Hopefully it will be for the best. If this pigeon hopes to ever hatch an egg, it will have to be on a more insulated surface than our concrete balcony.
