My poor, unruly gulls have suffered yet another setback in their efforts to inflict more gulls upon the world: horrible kids. I saw them, last night, a pair of them, creeping about on the roof. Stamping on nests. Mocking! “Not today, birdie,” I heard one of them shout, as the larger gull wheeled overhead, shrieking. Most unfortunate. I wonder if the kid would still have stamped on the eggs if he’d known what an understatement “not today” was? I mean, those gulls nested on the same roof, last year, and failed to hatch a single egg. First, building management cleared their nests away. So they hid them better — cleverly enough to avoid the workmen, but not the crows. And this year, why, this year’s been an endless parade of crow predation! Sure, the crows deserve a delicious snack; that, one understands. Human beings tramping on nests for fun, though, that’s just nasty. Shame on them. I wish I knew their parents, so I could turn them in.
Things are, however, looking much brighter on the finch and pigeon fronts. Freshly-fledged finches have been showing up at the feeder, and I saw my first juvenile pigeon, over the weekend. (You can tell you’re looking at a young pigeon when its beak looks ridiculously long, and extra-bumpy. Pigeons keep their wee ones in the nest longer than most birds — a couple of months, if I’m not mistaken — so they’re more or less fully cooked, by the time you get them on your balcony. But the beaks still give them away.)
I didn’t get a picture of the little pigeon: he or she is very shy, and flaps off at the slightest disturbance. Thus, I admire from a distance, and in silence. But I got several finch shots, to be going on with:
A juvenile finch occupies the feeder, while an adult looks on. While he appears to be giving me a disapproving look, I’m not sure he could see me, at all. I was hiding under a large hood, so I could take pictures without spoiling the birds’ dinner.
The feeder is occupied, so this finch is grubbling about in the dirt.
The little finch begs for food. I had hoped for a better shot of this, but a great bumptious SPARROW flew in and landed right between them, interrupting the feeding.
And these are sparrows.
