From Wikipedia:
The Rock Pigeon breeds at any time of the year, but peak times are spring and summer.
Nesting sites are situated along coastal cliff faces, as well as the artificial cliff faces created by apartment buildings with accessible ledges or roof spaces.
The type of nest constructed is a flimsy platform of straw and sticks, put on ledge, under cover. Often window ledges of buildings.
Two white eggs are laid with incubation that is shared by both parents lasting from seventeen to nineteen days. The nestling has pale yellow down and a flesh-coloured bill with a dark band. It is tended and fed on "crop milk".
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My third floor balcony held host to one of nature's miracles this spring. Little did I know what lay just beneath my cigarette butts.
One day while looking over the edge at a not-unattractive lady pushing her kid on a stroller, I spied an eye looking up at me from the rain gutter just within my line of sight. It was a very nervous pigeon sitting in a nest. It dawned on me that without me knowing, my cigarette breaks were giving this pigeon a mini heart attack once every two hours, 10 times a day (I smoke a lot). And for a second I felt bad.
In due time, I learned that pigeons make great mothers for it seemed as if she was not going to ever leave her eggs, even if it meant her life. And believe me, on many occasions I tried to take it. After one particular failed attempt which involved a firecracker tucked inside a piece of bread, I called it quits. I wasn't to bother her (too much) anymore, and I was to smoke inside, where such actions were meant to take place.
Over the next few weeks, the pigeon and her brood to be became a very boring conversation piece with my infrequent apartment guests.
Typically the guests would venture out onto the balcony to get away from me, and I would say,
"Hey, there is a nest there." and they would reply, "I see that."
Then I would the say, "its a pigeon." and they would reply, "no, I think its a dove."
And I would say, "dove, pigeon, does it make a difference?"
End of conversation.
Turns out that doves and pigeons are one and the same according to the internets. And they are monogamous in their relationships. Both mother and father incubate the eggs. But for simplicity's sake I would refer to the parents as the single mother. Besides its hard for the untrained eye to tell the difference between a male and female.
On the topic of the internet, I read somewhere that birds seek food with their right eye and look for predators with their left. I am not sure where I had read this or if it has any scientific merit. But it was really thought provoking when I read it.
So back on track, over the course of a week, before my very eyes, occurred the miracle of life. All of a sudden, like some freak of nature or something, what once was mere eggs, sprouted into two baby pigeons that looked nothing like their absentee father. I joke. But they were really ugly. Their single mother apparently left them alone as she gathered food. They looked fragile shivering in the blue morning light. The mother came as that queer thought came into being.
A stare-off commenced. My two eyes to her single eye, on that tiny cocked oval head of hers. Her confrontational stance was like a momma bear protecting her cubs. Ferocious that pigeon was. But foolishly she was using the right eye. I knew she couldn't win with the pussy food-seeking eye. A lesser man would have looked the other way, but I was not lesser.
To my misjudgment, after an hour, I could look no longer. An hour is a lot of time for a superior intellect to think. That intellect said I was the fool because it was the other way around. She would have lost if it was her
predator eye not her
food eye. If it was her predator eye she would have cried like a baby because it would have told her to run. But instead, the food eye showed her what she wanted, and at that moment she wanted my blood. I learned my lesson fool me once.
As another week passed, the two baby pigeons got big fast. Their adult feathers were emerging and their baby feathers were shedding. I was impressed. I thought about how lucky they were to be born in this rain gutter in the city. Although they were in plain sight there were no obvious predators that could snatch them from where they slept. I was sure. That night was when the hooing began.
I thought nothing of the hooing. For all I knew it could have been a 'cooing'. Pigeons coo. I definitely did not think owl, the thought didn't even cross my mind. Were there even any indigenous owls in Virginia? I didn't think so. I thought it was just some dumb species of bird that I knew nothing about, like the pigeons.
The next day I noticed that instead of two baby pigeons, there was only one. Was it connected to the hoos heard the other night? Once again, the thought didn't even cross my mind, for all I knew the remaining baby pigeon ate the other, in a strategic move which proved Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, or something like that. I shook my head. What a shame I thought. I looked over towards the sidewalk three floors down just in case it had fallen. Nothing.
The following night the hoos continued and were more prevalent. In the morning all that was left was an empty nest.
In retrospect, I think maybe it could have been an owl. Owls do 'hoo' and they are night time predators that eat small animals. But to that I'll never be one hundred percent sure. So whatever happened to those baby pigeons, doves, or whatever they were called, still remains a mystery.
However, I do know to a certainty that their mommy did not give them a piggy-back ride to another pigeon friendly place like New York (by the way pigeons, you are considered pests there). The babies were most likely dead. Nature is a cruel mistress, she creates life and then forever has them looking over their shoulder with their right eye, when they should have been looking with their left.
*Warning, graphic image of dead squirrel.*
