Day 18

Usually we only see cockatoos on our balcony - shredding the pot plants or on one occasion chewing off the bulbs from the hanging lights: one after the other, as Anthony and I sat in the lounge room wondering what on earth was making ‘that sound’ before shooing them away, only to have them return a few weeks later and finish the job off by chewing through the wire altogether - though on Saturday morning we sighted a pigeon. Not too unusual, though it was still around a few hours later, leading us to suspect it was either unwell or injured. A few years back a friend had a pigeon that nested itself on their front fence and no amount of activity would phase it. The poor thing just sat there all puffed up and after a few days disappeared. Our pigeon took on a similar behaviour, hiding away under our outside chair, all puffed up and settled in. Being slightly concerned for its welfare we placed out a bowl of water and some seed and although unphased at first, it eventually investigated the delivery and took up our hospitality. Two days later we have taken Pidgey - as Anthony’s named him - under our wing (excuse the pun) ensuring freshwater and a supply of food while s/he recovers (after some googling I soon learnt the difficulty on telling a pigeons’ sex). Pidgey’s daily routine seems to be: head out from under the chair, walk around, eat, head back under the chair, rest, walk around again before retiring for another rest, peck around for a bit and finally visit the water bowl before settling back in for the night. During any rainfall Pidgey prefers the shelter of the bbq and has certainly taken a liking to Anthony more than me (who wouldn’t?). Unfortunately we’ve had to shoo away some Maggies from stealing food and on occasion today I had to fend off poor Pidgey. At first we thought Pidgey was unwell, though on further inspection we suspect it’s missing a few feathers from its right wing (not wanting to stress she/he out too much, we haven’t investigated further). Hopefully, it’s the former and will be off enjoying the outside world soon - like us all.