Sunday, November 1st, 2020

Four or five pigeons gather around a single crust of bread. There may be more. They come and go quickly enough and look so similar that I can’t keep an accurate count. Only one bites at the bread at a time. Whichever one has it pecks at it until it can lift the bit of bread from the ground, then shakes it until it falls. No one else tries to get at it while one is in control. If one is trying to get it but doesn’t yet have it in its beak, another might approach, but the one working on it often coos menacingly and pecks at the air toward the other bird. The other one usually backs off, though, rarely, the one working on it gives up and walks away. It looks like a sports match or a ritual, with well-defined rules. When a human comes through on foot or on a scooter, the pigeons scatter. They return when the intruder has passed. I’m sitting on a bench about a meter away with a falafel and coffee, but I’m relatively motionless. My feet aren’t moving. I doubt that they see anything higher. They continue to work on it until they have nibbled most of the softer bread away from the hard crust. When they are almost done, a human in a yellow vest comes by with a broom. He sweeps up the crust and disrupts the scene. When he’s gone, some of the pigeons return, but there’s nothing left to interest them. They move on.