Fledgling Pigeon Eating Garbage Really Getting a Hang of This Pigeon Thing

ALLEY IN THE LOOP — Onlookers downtown report seeing a fledgling pigeon in an alley that had pecked a hole into a garbage bag and was feasting on the trash inside. According to witnesses the young pigeon seemed like it was “really getting a hang of the whole being a pigeon thing.”

 
“Pigeons are known for being poor care-givers to their young,” said  Dr. Harold Nguyen, 54, an ornithologist. “They can’t build nests, they do little to provide food, they forget they had a fledgling. Young pigeons are really on their own far sooner than most birds. They’re the iPad kids of birds. It’s honestly a miracle any of them make it to adulthood.”

“This time of year you start to see more of those little, freaky, baby pigeons that walk around shrieking, looking like they have no idea what to do,” said Horatio Benez, 38, a line cook that saw the precocious pigeon. “But this one looked like he knew what was up. Tearing into a bag, eating some greasy paper and something that might have been bread.”

“Some of these birds you can tell aren’t going to make it, but that pigeon knows what’s up.”

Onlookers estimate the pigeon must have been no more than two months old, but said it was eating trash off the ground in the alley like a bird who’d been doing it for years.

“I feel weird saying the bird was a natural,” said Megan Jenson, 23, a waitress, “because—you know—it’s a pigeon. But it was like it really understood what it meant to be a pigeon. Like it had self actualized and was determined to be the best pigeon it could be.”

While human onlookers marveled at the vigor of the young pigeon, contemporaries and peers were not surprised to see the bird flourish. 

“Kid’s growin’ up to be a fightah!” said George T. Featherwhistle, an elder pigeon with a thick southern accent and a frayed top hat who refers to himself as “the governah of dumpsters.” “When I took them unda my wing—pardon the pigeon expression—they didn’t know their tail from a hole in an ol’ moldy donut! But you know what ol’ George T. Featherwhistle says! A one, a two, a one-two-three-four!”

Featherwhistle then sang us a song about how to be a pigeon, seemingly titled “Shit on Your Problems.” The song featured several verses extolling the virtues of eating trash, drinking puddle water, and shitting whenever and wherever you want. There was choreography.

“Welp, I hope that clears things up,” said Featherwhistle, panting. “Lin Manuel-Miranda wrote that one for me.”