Baby Pigeons Sighted! Urban Mystery Solved!
Published: July 23, 1995
(Page 2 of 3)
I reported the parenting troubles to Margaret Barker of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, who had been training New York City schoolchildren to observe pigeons during the past three years. She had yet to see a baby pigeon here, but she was confident that they existed. Eggs normally hatch after 18 days, she said, but sometimes pigeons are frightened off the nest and sometimes eggs are doomed never to hatch because the parents aren't getting enough food and nutrients like calcium, an essential ingredient in sturdy eggshells.
I fed Medea a bowl of Raisin Bran mixed with a powdered calcium supplement. I didn't think this assistance would endanger her status as a wild pigeon -- after all, human feeding is an integral part of the natural ecosystem for New York pigeons -- but I worried about what it was doing to me. My journal asked: Am I going to become one of those people on park benches feeding pigeons?
The new calcium-enriched Medea laid two more eggs, and this time the roosting proceeded smoothly for the full 18 days. We were ready to make history on Friday, April 21, the day the first egg was due to hatch. Nicholas Kuskin, a photographer, rigged cameras, lights and reflective umbrellas both inside the bathroom and outside on the nearby ledge of the living room. I armed myself with a new set of binoculars and a copy of "The Pigeon," which I studied with the care that other expectant parents devote to Dr. Spock.
Nowhere in this richly illustrated encyclopedia could I find a picture of a baby pigeon in the wild, but it did offer photos and research data from pigeon farms. It also offered reassurance that my devotion to the birds was not necessarily a sign of mental illness. The five-pound book is a wonderfully detailed apologia by a dedicated pigeon fancier and commercial breeder, Wendell Mitchell Levi, who published the first edition himself in 1941. His work lifts the pigeon -- or, as devotees sometimes prefer to call it, the rock dove -- from gutter to pedestal.
"Wherever civilization has flourished, there the pigeon has thrived," Levi writes, "and the higher the civilization, usually the higher the regard for the pigeon." That traditional symbol of peace, the dove with the olive branch, is a white pigeon. Pigeons were worshiped as symbols of fertility in ancient Mesopotamia and sculpted on Egyptian tombs. Pigeons carried messages for King Solomon, helped Julius Caesar conquer Gaul and won dozens of medals for combat service during World War II.
Countless poets have praised pigeons' lifelong devotion to their mates, their serenity, their courage in protecting their young. Shakespeare alluded so often and expertly to pigeons that he may have been a breeder himself, according to Levi. (Hamlet casually reveals his knowledge that pigeons have no gallbladder by soliloquizing: "I am pigeon liver'd and lack gall.") Alfred Lord Tennyson linked their iridescent feathers with romance and rebirth in his famous couplet:
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
I quoted those lines to Don Guano and Medea as we waited that crucial Friday in April. But by evening neither egg had hatched. Saturday passed as well, and I went to bed fearing the worst: Don Guano is firing blanks; those eggs are dead. The next morning there was still no sign of action in the nest, and we discussed ending the vigil. Then, at noon, as Nick and I stood in the living room watching Don Guano settle in for his shift on the nest, we suddenly spotted a bit of golden fuzz moving underneath him. As Nick rushed up the ladder to his camera, I grabbed the binoculars and beheld the astounding sight: a shaggy little creature, lying in a heap along with the eggshell it had just escaped. Don Guano bent over solicitously and lifted up the mop-top hatchling by putting its thin beak inside his own. A few seconds later, Don Guano released the beak. The little guy collapsed and promptly disappeared underneath his father's wing. After a moment of stunned silence, Nick and I looked at each other and shook hands. "We did it," Nick said quietly. I nodded as reverently as I could and made an entry in my journal: Miracle of miracles! Yes, New York, there is a baby pigeon.
WE NAMED HIM SQUABBY AND watched him re-emerge several times that afternoon for more feedings of "pigeon milk," a grayish substance resembling cottage cheese that's produced in the crop of both parents -- the only instance of a male animal creating food for the young, as Levi proudly reports in "The Pigeon." I recorded Don Guano's paternal efforts as he took Squabby's beak inside his mouth:
4:15. Don Guano works his neck muscles mightily as he forces the milk into Squabby. When Don Guano releases Squabby's beak for a few seconds' rest, we see a white knob at the end of it -- the "egg tooth" that Squabby used to cut his way out of the shell. Then we hear Squabby's first "cheep" demanding more food. 5:15: Don Guano departs, leaving Squabby exposed for a moment. Poor little guy: pink skin not entirely covered by wisps of yellow down, little arms for wings hanging limply at side. Looks terrified and cold, nuzzling next to other egg. Medea finally comes back and takes over roosting and feeding duties.