#Friendship with Humans | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xtruss · 1 year

Text

The Tale of Ollie and Dollie, a Pair of Pigeons that Befriended a Family on Lockdown

A National Geographic Photographer finds an unexpected subject in a pair of bold pigeons that have pushed their way into his household.

— By Jasper Doest | Photographs By Jasper Doest | Published May 22, 2020 | Saturday June 24, 2023

Ollie, a pigeon who visits photographer Jasper Doest’s apartment in the Netherlands every day, perches on a plate while Doest fills the dishwasher. Ollie’s partner, Dollie, watches from the outside.

Vlaardingen, The Netherlands 🇳🇱 Tick tick tick tick tick. The sound of a creature’s nails on the laminate flooring approaches from the hallway. I look up from behind my laptop, where I’d been writing photo captions. During these times of pandemic-induced isolation, I’ve set up my home office on the couch. Across the room at the dinner table, my wife is helping our oldest daughter Merel, who’s 9, with her homework.

All our eyes are focused on the hallway now. As the sound gets closer, our 6-year-old daughter Fleur welcomes the visitor. “Hello Ollie,” she says.

With perky steps, a pigeon enters the living room. Ignoring us, he walks straight to the dinner table in search of breadcrumbs that our girls might have dropped during breakfast. He begins to feast, and I tiptoe towards the table to grab my camera.

The pigeons get bolder every day, Doest says. Here, Dollie has snuck past him and tried to land on the radiator. She didn’t take into account all the loose items, and she struggles to keep her balance.

Ollie and his partner in crime, Dollie, have been visiting our house for several weeks now and have become a welcome distraction from the daily news. I should have been on assignment in Romania at the moment, but I was forced to stay home when the coronavirus started spreading across Europe. On March 16 the schools closed, and the Dutch government called for an “intelligent lockdown,” advising us to stay home and to keep five feet of social distance. Unlike in other European countries, we’re still allowed to go outside, but we’re too busy homeschooling and keeping our daughters entertained to go anywhere.

When our isolation began, I decided to keep a visual diary to document the odd reality of this time. Soon, however, our pigeon visitors came to be my primary subject, with their freedom to expand their territory juxtaposing our limitations.

These days, the only place that offers me a breath of fresh air is our balcony. Thankfully spring has arrived early, and I’m able to enjoy my tea out in the sun every morning.

Top: Maaike, Doest’s wife, enjoys the spring weather on the balcony while the two pigeons keep watch. The Dutch government has asked people to stay at home because of the pandemic, so Doest and his family now compete with the pigeon pair for space on the 30-square-foot balcony. Bottom: Ollie visits 9-year-old Merel Doest, who’s doing her homeschooling on the couch while Dutch schools are closed. The pigeons regularly come into the living room looking for crumbs that Merel and her sister Fleur may have dropped under the table.

It was during this daily ritual in early April that I first took notice of the bird sitting on the railing, its iridescent purple and green neck feathers shining in the earlylight of day. The pair of pigeons that nested on our balcony last year had returned—as pigeons usually do—to claim their spot, right underneath my chair.

My wife was not too happy at first. Last year was quite a smelly affair. Rock pigeons—your common city pigeons—are generally despised for their droppings and are often believed to spread diseases.

“All wild birds carry parasites and bacteria,” says André de Baerdemaeker, an urban ecologist at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam and longtime wildlife rehabilitator. “I don’t consider an urban pigeon more dangerous than any other wild bird in that respect. Under normal circumstances, the chances that free-flying birds transmit a disease to a human being are very small.” The pigeon’s bad reputation isn’t justified, he says.

Top: Merel cowers after Dollie flew past her, trying to get into the house. She's still frightened when Ollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. "I thought he was going to attack me," she says. Nonetheless, both of Doest’s daughters have started to appreciate the pigeons, he says. Bottom: Ollie, standing behind 6-year-old Fleur, joins the family for sushi takeout—an at-home wedding anniversary celebration because restaurants are still closed. Doest heard Ollie approaching in the hallway and grabbed his camera just in time to get this shot.

“Some people believe that by living in an urban world, these birds avoid the rules of nature, but the opposite is true,” he says. Not only do pigeons face predators, food shortages, and competition for nesting sites, but they’re also subject to the whims of human society. Weaker pigeons still manage to stretch their fate by begging for crumbs in the streets, he says, and it’s these bottom-rung pigeons that shape the species’ overall reputation.

But we’ve got to know them as intelligent birds and loving parents. They mate for life, and they’re one of a small number of non-mammals that can learn to pass the mirror test, commonly used to measure self-awareness.

It’s fascinating to me that while many of the animals we don’t interact with are our most-loved, the animals we draw into our lives unintentionally are often the most hated. Pigeons must be one of the most unloved birds around.

Top: Merel cleans the balcony window with Ollie’s supervision. The pigeons love to perch on the door, and when it’s sunny, it’s kept open all day. Even when it’s overcast and the door is closed, they still come to hang out on the windowsill. Bottom: Dollie gets ready to land on the balcony door, where Doest installed a camera. She instead lands on the lens and uses the higher vantage point to see if the coast is clear before entering the kitchen.

When Ollie and Dollie returned this year, Merel and Fleur were still a bit frightened. “Help, they’re coming straight at me,” Merel screamed from the balcony a few weeks ago. I couldn’t help but smile. These pigeons are one of the few opportunities our children have to interact with wild animals in the city, and I believe there is great educational value in that. It gives me the chance to explain the opportunistic nature of urban wildlife. Besides, the girls quickly realized there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Every time I’m cleaning their waste off our balcony, I do understand how people see pigeons as a nuisance. But my impulse to malign them evaporated last year when Ollie and Dollie raised their chicks underneath our chair.

I’ll never forget Merel’s excitement when the first egg hatched and revealed this alien-looking, yellow squab. Sadly the chicks died over the course of two spring heatwaves, and then the nest became home to a large number of ants that marched their way into our kitchen. We eventually removed the nest, certain that we didn’t want pigeons on our balcony the following year.

Top: Ollie takes almost daily walks through the living room. One day Doest noticed him go into the girls’ dollhouse, so he set up a remote camera. After waiting on the couch for five hours, Doest sees Ollie walk in. The bird knocks over a couple figurines, checks the school bus, and then flies off. “I stare at the chaos he left behind and realize this is my life now,” Doest says. ”His visit has been the highlight of the day.” Bottom: As Doest’s daughters play in their rooms, the rest of the house is relatively quiet. Dollie takes the opportunity to venture into the living room. Sometimes when the birds come this far into the apartment, they tend to get disoriented and need to be lured back outside, Doest says. This time, however, Dollie seems to enjoy a quiet moment on the couch. She stayed for about half an hour.

But the pigeons came back this April. We’d just finished dinner, when suddenly I heard a loud noise from the kitchen. There was Dollie, feasting on the rice leftovers on Merel’s plate. The bird looked up. Apparently unafraid, she continued.

Pigeons. Give them a finger, and they'll take the whole hand.

Before we knew it, Ollie and Dollie became regulars in our house. These daily visits have become a reminder of another reality: We are not alone on this planet, and we need to share it with all living beings as if our lives depend on it.

Ollie has finished his business in the living room. I follow him to the hallway from where he can see Dollie. She has been waiting on the kitchen counter for him. For a minute they both stare at me. Then they fly off through the open balcony door into the clear blue sky. I envy their freedom.

Top: Just before sunset, Dollie takes off to roost. She and Ollie will be back tomorrow, ready to spend another day on the balcony. Bottom: Ollie and Dollie keep a close watch while Doest cleans the kitchen floor. Some 60 different diseases can be spread through pigeon droppings, but as long as good sanitation and hygiene are maintained—such as cleaning the droppings and washing hands regularly—it’s very unlikely two pigeons would make anyone sick, Doest says.

Merel looks at Dollie outside on the railing. It’s cold, so the balcony door stays closed. Though the pigeons can’t come in for their daily snacks, they do have the balcony all to themselves.

#The National Geographic #Story of Ollie and Dollie #Friendship with Humans

0 notes