In Praise of Pigeons & Doves
The loveliest group of birds
As a child, I took weekly ceramics classes at a studio across the street from my house. We met in the owner’s garage workshop and painted precast items before she fired them in the big kiln. We could choose any items that we wanted each week, and I remember once selecting a ring-necked pigeon whom I named Smudge. I avidly adored him.
When my nephew was younger, he called mourning doves “derpy doves.” In modern kid vernacular, that means they’re goofy. He found them to be awkwardly loud and clumsy, a fact that I am unable to dispute.
These are my favorite birds. I fixate on mourning doves because they’re the ones we see most often where I live, but all fine, feathery members of the Columbidae family delight me.
So it was a joy to come across this story from Zuzanna Żak (as is true of most of her stories if you like birds a lot):
Do you believe in pigeons? No, really. Some (I think joking) conspiracy theorists believe that the government wiped out the entire pigeon population and…
