Flying Rats

It’s never mentioned in any of the guidebooks, but I’ve come to consider pigeons when I travel. This may seem an odd selection, compared to entertainment, gastronomical, financial, and safety considerations, but I think the pigeon populations are pretty critical. It’s pretty awful to be trying to enjoy the Duomo in Milan, and then have to duck to avoid the dive-bombing pigeon population.

The other main risk when visiting the Duomo is getting scammed by one of the many gentlemen trying to get you to feed the pigeons or to take a bracelet, but there are enough warning about that I should think. No one ever told me that I’d be dodging pigeons throughout Rome.

This came up as a discussion topic while in Prague, observing some remarkably well-behaved pigeons in Old Town Square. Every so often in the news back home in Northern Virginia there’s something about the deer or foxes or other wildlife becoming accustomed to humans, and so they wander closer and closer to human habitation and into roads, and are promptly and horribly killed. In the cities most wildlife is hard to find, but not the noble, filthy, disease-carrying flying rat. I’m not overly fond of pigeons. I’m especially not fond of pigeons that have no fear and have no problem with summoning all their friends and flying over a group of tourists, at an altitude of roughly seven feet, give or take, so everyone has to duck to avoid plague. And feathers.

In Prague, however, the pigeon population was a fraction of what I find in the more southern cities. Even better, they were polite; as polite as pigeons can be which means they kept their distance from me as I sat, quietly hoping I would drop a loaf of bread or other treat, and scurrying off when some other tourist fulfilled their needs. There were still moments of mass flight that would have made me nervous, if they hadn’t been so unobtrusive. Really, there’s nothing quite like it. I think I liked Prague all the more for its pigeons. It reflected the feeling of the city; politely waiting for the tourist to drop some cash, but not pushy about it. In Rome, everything gets shoved in your face, which is partly because of the layout of the city and its many, many sites, and the pigeons have no fear.

I go to London in a few months, remarkably enough in the spring. I recall the pigeons being pretty bad in the winter from previous visits, so I’m interested in what I’ll find this time, when I’m more aware. I imagine charmingly polite, and then shove me out of the way when I fail to do something correctly, like spell words with an excessive “u”.