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Across the water.
Yesterday, I learned where birds go when it rains.
A hailing thunderstorm hit New York City yesterday. I'm still grappling with the concepts of downpours and summertime rain; you add hail into that, I'm stuck at the window, gaping at the torrents and the ice and everything tearing down out of the sky, flinging itself at the earth. I had the window open when it started hailing, and I kept it open until I saw how big the ice chunks were. Seriously sizeable.
I had other things to do, and I stayed at the window, watching and listening. And I noticed some pigeons. Not just because I try to always notice the pigeons: I knew these pigeons. The male I recognized from his speckled head, and the female was one of the sleek darker morphs. They were out in the rain, together, and I realized they must be a mated pair, to be caught together like this, and for how the male was protecting the female from the worst of the downpour.
Kitty-corner, catter-corner, diagonally across from my window-mounted AC unit is another window-mounted AC unit. The pigeons hang out on it, sometimes, when they've got nowhere to be and after they've eaten. They use it for shelter, too, the male pressing the female up close to it, using his body to protect her from getting hit by hail. He stepped back a couple of times, shaking his feathers, and he covered her, to the point I couldn't see her when he stepped back. I couldn't hear any sounds they might've made over the rain. All I could see was what they were doing, and he was stepping in between her and the world, putting her in the safest spot available to them. They must've been hanging out there when the storm hit, and couldn't risk going anywhere else. So they did the only thing they could: find the safest spot, and start waiting.
Pigeons bond well. They do it with humans, and they do it with each other. It's a skill of theirs. I see mated pairs around my window grooming each other and doing the beak-kissing thing. Whatever capacity for affection they have, it's present and expressed in how they engage with each other. Not with their faces, but their bodies. Like how they shake their feathers, and shield one another from the rain.
As soon as the hail stopped, I put out some seeds, and they ate with gusto. I've seen them around today, with the rest of the gang, and they're behaving as they always do on days with good weather and each other's company.
When it rains, birds make themselves small, and hide, and they make sure to go there with each other.
Oh, I also got my first novel rejection, so that happened too.
But mostly, birds in the rain.
A hailing thunderstorm hit New York City yesterday. I'm still grappling with the concepts of downpours and summertime rain; you add hail into that, I'm stuck at the window, gaping at the torrents and the ice and everything tearing down out of the sky, flinging itself at the earth. I had the window open when it started hailing, and I kept it open until I saw how big the ice chunks were. Seriously sizeable.
I had other things to do, and I stayed at the window, watching and listening. And I noticed some pigeons. Not just because I try to always notice the pigeons: I knew these pigeons. The male I recognized from his speckled head, and the female was one of the sleek darker morphs. They were out in the rain, together, and I realized they must be a mated pair, to be caught together like this, and for how the male was protecting the female from the worst of the downpour.
Kitty-corner, catter-corner, diagonally across from my window-mounted AC unit is another window-mounted AC unit. The pigeons hang out on it, sometimes, when they've got nowhere to be and after they've eaten. They use it for shelter, too, the male pressing the female up close to it, using his body to protect her from getting hit by hail. He stepped back a couple of times, shaking his feathers, and he covered her, to the point I couldn't see her when he stepped back. I couldn't hear any sounds they might've made over the rain. All I could see was what they were doing, and he was stepping in between her and the world, putting her in the safest spot available to them. They must've been hanging out there when the storm hit, and couldn't risk going anywhere else. So they did the only thing they could: find the safest spot, and start waiting.
Pigeons bond well. They do it with humans, and they do it with each other. It's a skill of theirs. I see mated pairs around my window grooming each other and doing the beak-kissing thing. Whatever capacity for affection they have, it's present and expressed in how they engage with each other. Not with their faces, but their bodies. Like how they shake their feathers, and shield one another from the rain.
As soon as the hail stopped, I put out some seeds, and they ate with gusto. I've seen them around today, with the rest of the gang, and they're behaving as they always do on days with good weather and each other's company.
When it rains, birds make themselves small, and hide, and they make sure to go there with each other.
Oh, I also got my first novel rejection, so that happened too.
But mostly, birds in the rain.
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I'm sorry about the novel rejection.