We have referenced the need for heroes in a previous post – BBC Wildlife Magazine now asks the question are feral pigeons good or bad? Is it really that black or white an issues?
Some of us think the feral pigeon is a pest, but Steve Harris is smitten by this tough, adaptable and really rather useful bird.
It was the satirist Tom Lehrer who started the rot in 1959 with his song Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, which explained that it takes only a smidgen of strychnine and “it’s not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon” (though I doubt that many Buddhists or Jains would agree).
However, Woody Allen delivered the coup de grâce in his 1980 film Stardust Memories, when he referred to feral pigeons as “rats with wings”.
The term had first appeared in a 1966 The New York Times article , but Allen’s film reached a much wider audience – Ever since, feral pigeons have been , together with North American grey squirrels (‘tree rats’) and rats themselves, seen as Terrible Three. More about these quite unusual creatures
