They say that travel broadens the mind.
They say that you should never work with children or
animals.
They say that Harry Hill pays £250 for funny video clips on
his television show.
"They" should have been in my local train station
last week, armed with a HD smartphone. I had one in my pocket but was far too
busy laughing to take it out.
We were off on a little weekend trip by train but (as is my
usual habit) had turned up at the station very early. Anyone who knows me will
tell you that I don't do 'late'. So we sat in an open-air coffee shop for a
while enjoying the fine weather and pretending to enjoy the "freshly
ground" coffee on offer. I'm not sure what ground they'd freshly dug it up
from but it was more mud than coffee.
Their food can't have been much better either as someone who
had recently vacated a nearby table had left most of their sandwich behind, a
fact which hadn't gone unnoticed by the local pigeon population. Some may see
them as flying vermin but these so-called rats with wings are some of the
smartest birds to be found around our towns and cities. At least, some of them
are.
While a group of them were content to demolish the remains
of the sandwich that was on and around the table, one particularly curious bird
had noticed something that none of the others had. He had seen that the paper
bag that had once contained the sandwich was also on the table. Not only that
but it was full of crumbs. Not only that
but it was open just enough to allow one inquisitive pigeon to reach the tasty
treats inside.
He poked his head in tentatively and obviously liked what he
saw. Within seconds his entire body disappeared into the bag until just the ends
of his perfectly-preened tail feathers were showing. The bag began to thrash
around like an unhappy landed trout as he pecked away at the discarded panini
crumbs inside. Presumably they were as attractive to him as pepperoni is to me
as he obviously wasn't going to leave any scraps behind. However his jerky
movements inside the paper bag dislodged quite a few crumbs from it which fell
onto the table, attracting the attention of several of his feathery friends.
They flew in en masse, and soon the table was lost from sight beneath their
cooing feeding frenzy. One of them even had the audacity to land on top of our
paper-shrouded hero as he sat still for a moment, presumably digesting his
unexpected panini feast.
So here's the scene: there's one lucky pigeon totally covered,
stretched out full length inside a paper bag on top of a coffee shop table.
Using this bag and its confused contents as a wobbly perch is another pigeon
and surrounding them both are their waste collecting comrades, all gratefully
gobbling down this bountiful feast.
And on another nearby table were me and my Beloved, giggling
like schoolkids at the comedic cavorting of some pigeons and some paper. We
thought that it wouldn't get better. But we were wrong.
The pigeon in the bag suddenly stood up. The fellow on his
shoulders lost his footing and took flight. Of course when one pigeon flies his
flock-mates are sure to follow and they all took to the air, wheeling around
the station, relishing the freedom of the skies.
All except for one.
He shook his wings tentatively but in standing to his full
height he'd allowed the paper bag to slip completely over him from his beak to
his missing-toed feet. He looked like the world's crappest glove puppet as he
stood alone on the table surface, turning on the spot in bewilderment. To be
fair I can only assume that the bird within was turning. What I saw was a paper
bag, standing on its open end and slowly twirling around like a rubbish Halloween
ghost on a turntable.
The Beloved and I were in tears by now and we absolutely
howled when he tried to take a few tentative steps around the table top. Being
totally hooded by the bag he couldn't see a thing and so had no way of knowing
that he was perilously close to the table's edge. Off he plummeted, leaving the
Beloved and I quivering wrecks as we sunk further into our seats.
I learned an important lesson that day. I learned that
pigeons are heavier than coffee shop sandwich bags. He fell at a slightly
quicker rate than his paper prison and so, with a panicked flutter of wings
that showered everything in the vicinity with the remaining panini crumbs, he
was free. Free to rejoin his pigeony pals with the tale of how he'd taken on
the crumb-baited bag trap and lived to tell the tail.
Mere rats with wings? Not this chap. He was the escapologist
and a stand-up performance comedian king of the pigeon world. Mr Feathery, I
salute you.
© Shaun Finnie 2013
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