#talkative

Near a park where we sometimes walk there are public toilets in a small building with a sloped roof and eaves. It's almost the only place around which is suitable for pigeons to roost in. I've watched strung wires and anti-bird spikes creep over most sittable surfaces around the park, over the course of a few years. There are a handful of pigeons which cling on, sitting on top of the security cameras and wedged uncomfortably around the wires, for where else should they go? There are few sheltered spaces safely off the ground for them to sleep in. Cats can climb. On exposed rooftops owls can see them. They're not tree-perching birds - they don't grip with their toes when they sleep, and in any case they show a clear preference for buildings, as presumably more like the cavey cliffs which their rock-dove instincts recognise as safe. And most buildings don't offer nearly enough ledges, and may even be designed with hostility to birds in mind. My boyfriend and I walked past this evening, it being a rainy night, and looked at the four little scrunched-in fluffballs trying to roost on what remains of the toilet block's eaves, while outside the roof every tree and hollow glittered wet. He said suddenly, "Those wires are just strung on hooks. You wouldn't even have to cut them. I bet I could unhook them, and it might take weeks for anyone to notice." He is tall. He stretched up and fiddled with the ends of three wires, which were strung out a few centimetres above the horizontal roof beams, to make it impossible for birds to sit there. In a minute the wires were laid down flat on top of the beams. The pigeon on the tiny uneven perch of the security camera above poked out its head from its huddled fluff and looked down. I hope it perceived that there was an easier place for it to rest for the night. He walked on pleased. I was pleased with him. We shared a joke story, 'The Mask of Pidjo', in which a Zorro-like figure fights for the right of abandoned domestic birds not to freeze while they're trying not to get eaten. He could, in fact, most likely beat any local council members in a rapier fight specifically, should it come up.