I can be such a sappy sucker.
About a month ago, I noticed a pigeon egg lying in the planter on the windowsill outside my bedroom, and against my better judgment, I left it there.
I wanted to get rid of it because pigeons can be loud and rather disgusting, and I didn’t much relish the idea of having them breed right next to my bed. But I also knew I’d feel bad for the parent pigeons, who after all were just looking for a space to do what they were put on this Earth to do. (plus, pigeons mate for life, which is kind of romantic!)
It wasn’t my first experience dealing with unwanted pigeons. Two years ago, I had a family of the birds living on my balcony, behind a mirror my ex-girlfriend was supposed to have long ago fixed or gotten rid of, and they totally dirtied up the place with their crap and nesting material.
As soon as their baby was old enough to fly out on his own, I told my ex to get rid of the mirror immediately so we could start cleaning the balcony; she didn’t and the next day the pigeons had laid two more eggs. I told her enough was enough, and made her dispose of the eggs and clear the nest, something she as a crazy animal lover was very reluctant to do. After she had gotten rid of the eggs, the mother came back to the balcony several times, cooing repeatedly, pacing, and probably wondering what the hell had happened. It was not easy to watch …
So this time I decided to let the pigeon egg be. I thought I was doing the noble thing and at first, it didn’t look like such a bad decision. The birds were actually pretty quiet – the only noise came after the baby was born and one of the parents would return to feed it (which they do by regurgitating their food into the baby’s mouth). And I actually got a fair amount of enjoyment watching the baby hatch and grow up (baby pigeons are so much cuter when they don’t have mature feathers!!).
Last week, the baby pigeon became old enough to fly out on his own – I felt a bit like a proud parent watching him maneuver uncertainly across the street – and eventually it flew off and never came back. The parents, too, never reappeared.
I thought Pigeons At My Apartment, the sequel, was going to have a happy ending. Alas, it was not meant to be.
This past Sunday night, upon returning from our trip to the Poconos, my girlfriend noticed a bunch of very small, almost microscopic bugs swarming on top of the fan by where the pigeons had been. I had no idea what the bugs were and just sprayed the area with Raid. I thought I had killed all the little creatures and solved the problem …
And then I started to itch …
Apparently, those little bugs were bird mites, and they were in search of a place to feed once their initial host – the baby pigeon – had disappeared. It seems I became that source – I’ve noticed a number of tiny red marks on my legs and chest – and it totally creeps me out to think a couple dozen of them may be crawling on me as I type this.
An exterminator is coming on Thursday to treat the bedroom, but these mites can be tough buggers to get rid of. The literature is somewhat conflicted but according to most of the extensive Googling I’ve done, bird mites don’t tend to flourish on human blood, and they don’t seem to do any real health damage. Hopefully, in a few days, the apartment and my body will be mite-free again.
The moral of this story: Sappy suckers sometimes suffer severely.
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