Eleven months ago, scaffolding was erected around my flat. It encased the building in metal poles and, even worse, thick white netting. Whilst I appreciated that the work was making the building safer, it also meant we spent almost a year living in darkness. My bedroom constantly looked like night time, and even in June we needed to put the dreaded big lights on before 7 p.m.

It was depressing, not just because it felt like we were living in a cave, but because it disconnected me from the outside world. The trees outside my window disappeared. So did the stars, the planets, the International Space Station, meteor showers, and the sunrises. Most importantly, I stopped seeing the wild pigeons I’d been feeding for years.

I didn’t realise quite how much I’d missed them until the day they came back.

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Forget Me Not

When the scaffolding was erected, the wood pigeons we’d named Squigeon and Goose couldn’t get to my window anymore. I had been feeding them since 2020. We met during lockdown, and the way we met always felt so significant to me. I was grieving my best friend WeeGee’s death, sitting by the window on my own while my son was in his room doing Zoom school. Very 2020.

As I sat there, Squigeon landed on the other side of the glass. I immediately decided I wanted to befriend him and texted my son that I was having an emergency. He came running in, probably thinking some new chaotic disaster had happened. No. The emergency was of the avian variety.

I immediately bought sunflower hearts and spent the next few weeks hoping he’d come back. He did. For a wild wood pigeon, he was incredibly curious and brave. He’d get surprisingly close to me and even let me shove my iPhone in his face for several thousand photos and videos. Seriously, my camera roll is 90% pigeons.

Over the years, I didn’t just get to know Squigeon. I met his partner, Goose, who is a little more timid and wary of me, and several broods of babies he’d proudly brought to the windowsill. One of the VERY FLUFFY babies even took a nap on my windowsill. There may have been squealing and lots of “IT’S A BABY!” I felt so honoured. It genuinely felt like Squigeon trusted me with his babies.

So when they disappeared because of the scaffolding, I was really upset, but I think I swallowed a lot of it. It felt a bit silly to miss two wild pigeons that weren’t even my pets. I also felt that because I was grieving my best friend, I wasn’t allowed to also really miss Squigeon and Goose. Almost as if it would take away from what I was feeling about WeeGee.

I did constantly worry though. I worried they’d leave the area, that I’d never see them again, or that they would become wary of me. I also worried they’d think I had something to do with the scaffolding, although I’m not sure wood pigeons carry grudges. Squigeon certainly seemed to the one time I gave him peanuts. He HATES peanuts. I had to buy him walnuts instead, hoping he’d forgive my severe error in judgement for assuming all pigeons like peanuts.

But scaffolding isn’t forever, even when it feels like it. Even when it’s been there for almost a year.

Eventually, it comes down.

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The Day the Light Came Back.

The scaffolding started to come down in between me destroying a sofa, and building a bed. On a break from demolishing my flat, I heard the unmistakable tap tap tap at my window. Oh yes, Squigeon knocks to get my attention. I got very excited, and there he was, looking all proud and requesting walnuts as though the last 11 months had never happened.

I didn’t have any as I hadn’t needed to feed him for 11 months and I may have eaten the ones I had. Sorry, Squigeon. But I did have currants, which he loved. I was so, so happy to see him. I immediately ordered ungodly quantities of walnuts and sunflower hearts on Amazon, just like I had when we first met.. It was such a relief because since he’s come back, he has been unmistakably Squigeon.

He’s been knocking, climbing all over my windows, still just as curious and brave as ever. He’s perfectly happy with my hand right next to him while I drop walnuts, sits on my open window while we’re eating dinner, looking into the flat.

Today, he actually almost came inside. He stood on my window frame, doing his little head bobs as if to say,

“What are you doing, human? where are my walnuts?”.

Which means he has actually been even more Squigeon than usual. Hopefully that means he missed us too. I’m sure, mostly, he missed my walnuts, but I choose to believe he missed us too.

Since he’s been back, and especially today when Goose finally visited too, I’ve realised these wood pigeons are more than just wood pigeons to me. They are my friends. I’ve been through a lot since my best friend passed away, and they’ve been there for me every day. They really make my day when they visit, and they often visit multiple times a day.

WeeGee’s favourite book was Death and the Penguin. It’s a book about an unlikely friendship between a man and his penguin. I don’t really believe people who’ve died can send us signs, but I have laughed more than once at how her it would be if she looked at my friendship with a pair of wood pigeons and said, “Well, how was I supposed to get a penguin to Wales?”

Since they’ve been back, I have been doing nothing but spending as much time with them as possible, taking MANY videos and photos of them, and turning my Instagram account into nothing but pigeon spam. It took missing them to realise how lucky I am to have pigeon friends.

When the scaffolding came down, it brought the light back. Not just the photons, but the kind of light Squigeon and Goose bring to my life. The light that comes from absolute weirdo Squigeon, the way Goose is such a silly Goose, and the comfort of knowing they seem just as happy to see me as I am to see them.

If you’d LOVE to see EVEN MORE chaotic pigeon spam, including videos of Squigeon and Goose, click the image to check out my Instagram:-

This is the perfect song for this post. It all starts with a, “Hello”.