Pigeons, Doves, Bobs and other annoying birds.

On Thursday, it was a Jay day.
"Did you see that bird?" I said to the over-excited estate agent, who walked into my mum's garden with his clipboard. "I think it was a Jay."
"It's a beautiful garden," he gushed.
"Yes, yes but did you see the bird?" I asked. "I don't think it was a normal magpie. There was a flash of blue. It might have been a Jay. They are quite shy birds, often stay in the woodlands.  It's probably quite special to have a Jay in the garden.  I'm sure there's something about ancestral wisdom with Jays."
Sighing, the agent realised that he would have to talk about birds to have any kind of meaningful conversation with the mad woman he had just made cry.
"The problem with feeding birds," he said, "is the pigeons. I hate pigeons, they're really annoying."
I thought that they weren't the only ones but I said nothing.
Jay days are difficult and a bit elephanty and so I'm going to write about pigeons instead.

Every day is pigeon day. The agent was right.  If you feed the birds you get the pigeons and they sit on the fence, pooping on your nice sun loungers, bobbing their heads to impress the females, having noisy, flappy sex if their bobbing has done the trick, and annoying the dog.

We don't get the Rock/Feral Pigeons that you see in London, spying on the world from their strategic positions on top of the statues and buildings. Our pigeons don't have the two-tone green and purple breast that looks like an oil slick around Southend pier on a sunny day. We don't hear the burbling coo of secrets passing between them. Oh no.  Our pigeons are noisy. 

The Long Suffering Husband has been woken by the birds at 3.30 for the last few mornings and he's had enough. It would be alright, he thinks, if it was just the little birds. Twittering tits and squabbling starlings he could cope with but the pigeons take the biscuit.  Actually, they don't just take the biscuit they take the whole packet.

I wanted to know what type bothered him the most but he was confused. He just thought there was one type of pigeon.  I explained how we didn't get the London Pigeons but how we had two other types of pigeon birds and they sounded different.

The wood pigeon is the fatter of the two, is dark grey with a white ring around it's neck and possibly a little green tinge on it's breast.  It has an orange beak and more beady eyes. It's coo is softer.

The Collared Dove is a light grey, slim line variety, with blacker eyes, a thin black collar and, surprisingly, a football hooligan voice.

"So, did it say, 'Who is Bob Austin?'  or did it shout, 'Who are you? Bob Austin?'" I asked the LSH.
He just laughed.
"It's how you tell the difference," I said.
"Yes, but who is Bob Austin?" the LSH wanted to know.

It was my Dad that told me the difference between the two bird calls and he would often do this odd thing of wandering around the house randomly saying, "BobAustin," when I was small.  I think he just liked the way the sound of it bounced out of his mouth.

"He was the bus conductor," I replied and then told the LSH about how, when my parents were first married and dirt poor, Dad had often run out of money on a Thursday before he was paid and how a nice bus conductor used to let him on, knowing that Dad would pay double the next day. 

"You made that up," accused the LSH.
"Did I?" I winked.