The Lonely Allure Of Street Pigeons

Pigeons and People, written in the 1960s, broke new ground in tracing the sentiment attached to the street pigeons of the world. WILLY NEWLANDS pays tribute to its extraordinary historical range, while not necessarily agreeing with the authors’ somewhat unsentimental conclusion

- Willy Newlands

THE street pigeon has many enemies. Man is his only friend. Take a seat in a kerbside café in any big city and the pigeons are there, dotting about among your feet. There are millions of them living on handouts. They are often fairly desperate-looking birds with rough plumage and crippled feet, but they are survivors.

And in every park and most railway stations, there is someone who opens a paper bag and scatters a few crumbs for the birds. Everyone knows the pigeons, but most people give them little thought. Ornithologists give them none at all. This was the reason why George Ordish, economic biologist, and Pearl Binder, artist and researcher, decided to write Pigeons and People. A slender hardback published in 1967, this was an attempt to answer the question: “Why are people fascinated by pigeons?” Or even: “Why are pigeons fascinated by people?”

The authors said they would write “… an account of the published scientific work on this bird, examine the relationship between man and pigeon, speculate on the effects of one on the other, and peer into the future of both creatures … as ornithologists so neglect this bird, we offer this book to redress the balance.