Filthy? Pests? Author sees the beauty in the bird.
Andrew Blechman sat on a bench on Boston Common, feeding Cheerios to an attentive band of Columba livia, a.k.a. rock pigeons, a.k.a. plain old American city pigeons. Passersby looked at him askance, but Blechman was enjoying himself.
"I don't see any racing bands," he said, scrutinizing the birds' legs. "There's one with some feathers on his legs -- might have some racer in him." Two squirrels and a starling joined the fray, and he welcomed them. "I don't discriminate," he said. When a starling leaped up and caught a Cheerio in midair, Blechman said with delight, "Wow -- the Michael Jordan of starlings!"
Blechman, a freelance writer and former newspaperman who lives in Great Barrington, gained an appreciation for the birds most city folk view with disgust while researching his new book, "Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird." You might not think one could make a book out of this subject, but "Pigeons" is into its third printing, and Blechman has discovered the birds excite passions at all ends of the spectrum. And one can't help but notice that he has a sprightliness and optimism about him that is not unlike his subjects.
"Before I wrote this book," he said, "I had no opinion of pigeons -- I'm not a bird person. But I've learned to appreciate them. Their crime is that they're actually like us -- they're gregarious. If we think they're filthy and problematic, I think we should look in the mirror."
The facts about pigeons and doves -- all closely related members of family Columbidae -- are remarkable, though for most of us they fly below the radar. Domesticated as long as 10,000 years ago, around the time of the dog, they have been seen as symbols of fertility, peace, and the Christian Holy Spirit. A pigeon that fails to return is a signal to Noah that the deluge is over, and the parents of Jesus offer two pigeons at the presentation in the temple.
An old-world species, Columba livia was brought over by French settlers in Canada in the 17th century, and by others later on. Soon they populated the continent. They're highly edible, and their homing powers made them the ultimate messenger in war and peace -- they were the original transmitter of news for Reuters news service, and thousands were used in wars, including World War II. Though lacking corporate sponsorship and declining , the sport of pigeon-racing is a passion in Europe and the United States. Lost racers often join flocks of their common cousins, and can sometimes be spotted.
In our day, of course, the feral pigeons of cities are a nuisance, nesting on building ledges and on girders under bridges and inside train stations. A pigeon can produce 25 pounds of poop a year, and since they remain loyal to the old home place, the stuff mounts up.
Blechman, 38, a graduate of Vassar College and the Columbia School of Journalism, worked for various newspapers, including the Des Moines Register, but grew tired of daily news and wanted to write longer pieces. He moved to New York in the late 1990s to become a freelancer, and happened to meet a fanatical Brooklyn pigeon-breeder and -racer, which led him to a fascinating subculture. He wrote a piece about it in Smithsonian magazine.
In 2001, he moved to Great Barrington in the Berkshires, bought a small pasta business, got married , and fathered a daughter. Two years later, while pondering his ravioli costs, he got a call from New York literary agent Catherine Drayton, soliciting a book proposal. In an inn in Vermont, she had chanced to see his Smithsonian piece in an old issue. He was stunned and skeptical. "I had no interest in writing a book," he said. "I didn't think I was good enough."
Drayton differed. Via e-mail from Australia, where she is traveling, Drayton explained: "Andrew's writing is first-rate. He has the ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to expose the quirky side, the essential weirdness, of people and their passions. He also has the ability to convey visual images as if you were watching them on a screen." Blechman wrote a proposal, Drayton shopped it, and Grove/Atlantic grabbed it.
"Pigeons" is a first-person account of Blechman's travels around the pigeon subcultures: the racers, the shooters (in clubs that would rather massacre live pigeons than the clay variety), the compulsive city feeders, the organized pigeon-defenders and specialists in population control. He travels from New York to a club shoot and a breeding show in Pennsylvania, to a strip-joint in Phoenix on a futile quest for an interview with boxer (and pigeon-fancier) Mike Tyson, and to England, where he visits the royal keeper of the queen's pigeons in Sandringham palace and an event honoring heroic military pigeons in the House of Commons.
Blechman acknowledges that it's not the pigeons per se that offend people; it's their numbers. But he writes that the numbers are dependent on feeding by humans and by handy nest sites. Stop feeding them, and block off their nest s with nets or other barriers, and their numbers drop without need of poison -- which doesn't work anyway. But it takes a persistent campaign -- Paris Hilton was recently arrested for feeding them in London's Trafalgar Square -- and most pigeon-feeders are as persistent as graffiti artists.
Though he's decidedly not an animal nut (his upcoming book, "Geritopia: Adventures in a World without Children," explores the explosive growth of age-restricted residential developments), Blechman developed a deep affection for the birds that many people condemn as filthy. He readily leaps to livia's defense, pointing out that all birds defecate, and even pretty ones don't wash up afterward . "They're horribly persecuted," he said. "Our society is riddled with biases, and the pigeon is one of the victims. "
When asked the essential quality of the pigeon, he said, "If I were to use one adjective, it would be 'gentle.' How many creatures in the wild would you trust with your 2-year-old ? They run around chasing pigeons, and we don't worry about it. Have you ever heard of anybody being hurt by a pigeon? Pigeons don't turn on you -- the most aggressive thing they will do is gently peck your hand. Children are a lot wiser. They love them, and they're not prejudiced."
David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com. 
