Recently, as I was standing near the beach I happened to notice a very busy pigeon flying back and forth mining the parking islands for choice mulch twigs and pieces of bark. After observing this for awhile, I realized it was a pigeon pair preparing their “love nest” together.

Their single-mindedness was impressive. Even though there were tons of people, sometimes only two or three feet away, the pigeons were not deterred and continued with their nest supply gathering activities.

Then I noticed that they were flying with twigs to the public restrooms…why on earth would they build a nest there? Obviously, I had to know more. A quick investigation revealed that they had picked the one spot where we (as in we the people) didn’t want them to build, right amongst the little spikes intended to keep birds away!

Instead of seeing the spikes as a deterrent, this pigeon pair saw a ready-made nest foundation. They used the spikes to hold the base of the nest and then just kept stacking away. Once they were comfortably past the spikes, they built the rest of the nest on top. Genius I say!

Score: Pigeons 1, People 0