Score one for the humans.

In Montréal, as in most big cities there are pigeons. A lot of them. They are generally flying rats that eat anything, poop a lot and are rather noisy. Sometimes, to a newcomer or a child for example, they can be pretty, but in everyday life, they are more nuisance than gift of nature. Don't get me wrong, I love nature, but I also love my sleep and the pigeons who are attracted by our back balcony seemingly love to rob me of it.

We knew that the possibility of the presence of pigeons existed at this apartment when we saw that the former tenant had this guy hanging from a cord. That's our bedroom window. Yes, lucky me, I have a view of a big plastic bird. I haven't named him. I think I will. Any suggestions? We learned pretty quickly that the fake owl does nothing to keep the pigeons away, although I've never actually seen a pigeon land on the owl, so in that sense I guess it is effective.

Then I had the idea of hanging some shiny, reflective things from the balcony and I purchased this St. Patrick's day garland at Dollarama. It makes green flashes of light dance through the kitchen in the afternoon.
Still thinking I was on the right track, I wondered what other shiny things I could hang from the balcony. I looked forward to future holidays so I could purchase additional garlands at Dollarama. Then one day while waiting for a bus I saw, as I've seen more than a few times, a CD sitting in the road. It had obviously seen better days and I thought it would be good recycling to re-purpose the unplayable disk as pigeon deterrent. The best part is the handwritten title of the home-burned CD, (which unfortunately washed off over time): Bomb Ass White Booty. I kid you not.I had grand ideas of collecting any abandoned CD or other durable shiny thing and creating a shiny reflective moving curtain or sculpture if you will. But I soon abandoned my artistic thoughts when we began to see little piles of twigs in the corners of our balcony. I have no photos of these "nests under construction" because we disposed of them promptly, not wanting the enemy to make himself any more at home on our balcony than he or she already was.

We destroyed a dozen or so half-built nests, each time hoping the pigeons would get the message. Then one day last week we got a response:

A freakin' EGG! No nest, no ruckus. Just an egg sitting on our balcony. It's actually bigger than I thought it would be. Check out the photo of the egg next to an ordinary walnut.
We snatched it up and I put it in the refrigerator where it sits today. Yes, we disrupted the precious cycle of nature. And no, I'm not planning to make an omelette, nor am I planning to feed it to my cat. My friend Doug would encourage me to "eat locally," but I liken it to cooking up the mice I caught in my former house in the country. Bo is going to figure out what to do with it. Eventually it may just end up in the trash, I suppose. But we can nonetheless hold our heads high knowing there is one less pigeon in Montréal.