LITTLE MAMA PIGEON

A pigeon made a nest on the shelf of my wash area. Anticipating the mess it would make, I decided I should clean up the place as soon as I found some spare time.

The next time I got on to a stool to survey the mess, I saw a lone egg sitting pretty. Since I could not relocate the egg, I decided to wait it out.

After days of peeping into the nest, one fine day I saw that it had finally hatched. The baby pigeon grew rapidly, right before my eyes.

When I consulted my mother about it, she told me that pigeons lay eggs every fifteen days. So I decided it was time to clean up the mess. I moved the little bird aside as it was still too young to fly, cleared up the area, put a fresh newspaper on the shelf and put the baby back.

The next morning I got on to the stool and what do I see? Two more eggs staring at me and the baby pigeon sitting on them.

Thoroughly confused I once again called up my mother and she explained these may be eggs laid by another pigeon. However, she couldn't explain why the little one was sitting on them.

Fascinated by the sight, I kept a close watch on every movement around the shelf at different parts of the day.

I saw the mother come and feed the little one, while it sat on the eggs. I decided it had to be a female bird to have these motherly instincts at such a tender age. I even saw two pigeons sitting around the little one at night. Must be her parents.

The little pigeon hardly ever moved away from the eggs. The moment there was any movement near the shelf it immediately back up into the corner and sat on the eggs. A sweet sight to watch, she behaved like a possessive mother for two whole weeks.

A few days later, I heard a lot of loud flapping noises... so I ran to the shelf and saw the little pigeon being held in a tussle by another pigeon who finally managed to push her off the shelf.

Since the little pigeon could not fly I hoisted it on to the shelf and helped her regain her seat of honour. I do not know whether I did the right thing, but my loyalties were to her, and her's to the eggs. After all, she was the surrogate mother who had guarded and sat so patiently on the eggs.

The next day there was another fight and again I helped her. The third time I found her off the shelf, I decided to help her fly as I didn't want blood on my hands.

Within ten minutes she was back. There was a major tussle of wings and this time I found a third pigeon had also joined the fray. The three of them pushed each other in turns while holding on to the the shelf at the same time. I do not know who won the bout, but sadly the unhatched eggs sure lost it.

The prized eggs were finally abandoned. Since they hadn't hatched all these days, the birds must have realised the futility of their fight for its ownership!