I have written about the wild pigeons that I have made friends with before, but when I saw this prompt, I thought it was a lovely opportunity to share what makes Squigeon and Goose uniquely different from one another. They are easy to tell apart, not just by examining their feathers, but by their personalities, habits and food preferences.

Before I made friends with these adorable wood pigeons, I assumed all pigeons were pretty much the same. Getting to know them over the last six years has completely changed that. Not only have I come to recognise them as individuals, but I’ve watched Goose gradually become a different, more confident bird as she slowly learned to trust me.

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Introducing Squigeon the Brave

Squigeon is the wood pigeon I originally made friends with. He has always been exceptionally curious and brave. Unlike Goose, he seems to enjoy me being close while he eats. He’ll often come over just to sit on the windowsill while I write or draw. It feels like having a tiny feathered coworker keeping me company.

I’m convinced Squigeon has set up surveillance on my flat. If I’m not at the usual window I feed him from, he’ll fly around checking the others until he finds me. I often catch him outside my bedroom in the trees while I’m putting washing away or doing strength training, staring in as though he’s making sure I’m where I’m supposed to be. He especially enjoys watching me clean the windows. He’ll follow me from window to window in the trees, probably wondering what on earth I’m doing. Once the windows are clean, he suddenly starts visiting more often. I genuinely think he appreciates the clearer glass to see through.

Squigeon has dropped a few interesting items onto my windowsill over the years. I imagine he accidentally left them behind while collecting nesting material, but one of those items was a GiffGaff SIM card. I did wonder if he thought I’d find that useful. Then again, maybe he’s actually a government surveillance drone and wanted me to replace his SIM card. Given I can’t exactly ask him what he was thinking, who knows? Although, I doubt government surveillance drones would mate on my window. If they are, they’re really committing to the pigeon bit.

Although I’ve occasionally had to deal with my window turning into PigeonHub, Squigeon has also brought his babies to visit many times. He never seemed nervous when they explored. Instead, he’d stand nearby watching them as though introducing them to somewhere important. One of them even fell asleep on my windowsill. That was the moment I realised he trusted me far more than I’d ever expected a wild bird to.

Squigeon has incredibly strong opinions about food. He HATES peanuts. It took him quite a while to forgive me after I made the mistake of offering them. He also refuses to eat peas. On the other hand, he loves currants, walnuts, sunflower hearts and, more recently, pecans. The pecans took some investigating first. He stood staring at one for ages before finally trying it, then immediately scoffed the lot. The nuts also have to be cut into exactly the right size. If they’re too big, he’ll pick them up, look offended, and fling them dramatically off the windowsill.

His favourite place to eat is the windowsill, which is completely different from Goose. Even after all these years he still doesn’t seem entirely convinced that the glass itself is solid and gets quite nervous walking onto it. What he lacks in confidence with glass, he more than makes up for with curiosity. If I move his food, change which window I use or rearrange something, he doesn’t give up. He’ll hop around, look from different angles and eventually work out how to reach it. He genuinely seems to enjoy solving little puzzles.

Perhaps my favourite thing he’s taught himself is how to get my attention. If my curtains are closed, he’ll tap… tap… tap… on the window. I certainly never taught him to do that. One day he must have decided to try absolutely everything to get my attention, discovered that tapping worked, and now he does it every single time. It’s hard not to smile when I hear that familiar little knock at the window.

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Introducing Goose the Formerly Timid

For six years, Goose only ever tolerated my existence. She hated being photographed, hated when I moved and would fly off if I did anything too human. She was exceptionally timid, so if she came to eat, I would stay as still as possible and let her decide when she felt comfortable enough to approach.

Then scaffolding surrounded my flat and neither Goose nor Squigeon could visit for almost eleven months. When it was finally removed and they returned, I was introduced to an entirely different Goose. For a while, I genuinely wondered if she was the same bird. The only reason I knew she was is because she has distinctive white patches on her tail feathers that I haven’t seen on any of the other wood pigeons.

Goose now lives up to her name. She is an absolute silly Goose.

She’s now even braver than Squigeon, far more curious and exceptionally sassy about getting exactly what she wants. My windows open in a way that creates a little horizontal platform, and during one boiling hot day I had them all open. Goose decided to stand on the open window and peer into my flat. Since that day, she’s apparently decided this is the only acceptable place to be fed.

As soon as I open the window to her exact specifications, she hops up looking ridiculously pleased with herself. I’m fairly sure she enjoys the fact that, from up there, she can look down on me while she’s eating. Some of the expressions she’s pulled from that position have been hilarious. She always looks as though she’s judging every life decision I’ve ever made.

Somewhere over those six years she stopped simply tolerating me and started trusting me.

Recently she brought one of her babies to visit for the first time, had a wash on the window and even decided to have a nap there. Today she surprised me again. Normally, when I put food out, she’d walk right to the far end of the window and wait until I’d sat down before coming near. Today she walked towards my hand while I was still putting the seeds down. I stayed completely still, and she calmly carried on eating. It might seem like a tiny thing, but after six years it felt incredibly special.

Goose’s food preferences are VERY unpredictable. Some days she’ll only eat sunflower hearts and completely ignore walnuts. Other days she’ll refuse sunflower hearts and demand walnuts instead. She has also recently decided pecans are excellent. At this point I’m fairly certain I’m no longer feeding wild pigeons. I’m operating a pigeon café and taking orders.

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Honourable Mention: The Babies

Over the six years I’ve been friends with Squigeon and Goose, I’ve seen them raise many babies. They currently have two teenage pigeons following them around everywhere, and I think another one too, possibly an older youngster from a previous brood.

Baby pigeons are absolutely adorable. They’re scruffy, impossibly fluffy and endlessly squeaky, with beaks and feet they still haven’t quite grown into. Squigeon and Goose must have nested nearby because all day I can hear their little squeaks coming from the trees. It is one of the cutest sounds I’ve ever heard and immediately sends me into a cuteness meltdown. I want to hug them so badly… although I suspect they wouldn’t appreciate that nearly as much as I would.

Just like how I feel about human babies, there’s something magical about watching baby pigeons discover the world. Even more special is watching Squigeon and Goose look after them. Seeing them feed, protect and patiently watch over their youngsters reminds me that care, sacrifice and devotion aren’t uniquely human.
They’re also very pigeon.

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Never Thought My Best Friends Would Be Birds

I met Squigeon and Goose the year my best friend died. It was only two months after losing her, while I was still grieving, that they first started visiting me. Since then, they have become my best friends.

I’m not allowed pets where I live, but somehow I still found a way to make friends with animals. They visit me four or five times a day and sometimes simply sit on my window for ages, watching me while I write, draw or just go about my day.

I’ve been through so much since they became part of my life, and somehow they’ve been there through all of it. Goose especially, since she came back after the scaffolding was removed, makes me laugh at least twice a day with her sassiness and complete inability to behave like a sensible pigeon. I can be having the worst day imaginable and still find myself laughing because Goose is… well… being VERY Goose.

People often ask me how I’ve managed to tame or train them. The truth is, I haven’t. If anything, they’ve trained me. All I’ve ever done is respect their boundaries and let them decide how close they want to be. I’ve wanted to touch them for years, but neither of them has ever shown any interest in that happening, so I simply respect it.

It took six years for Goose to go from barely tolerating my existence to walking towards my hand while I was putting food out. I like to think that’s because she knows she’ll always get to make that choice herself. If one day she decides she wants to be closer, wonderful. If she doesn’t, that’s okay too. I’m willing to wait.

Goose and Squigeon have completely changed the way I see pigeons. Six years ago, if you’d asked me about pigeons, I probably would have shrugged and assumed they were all much the same. Now I know that’s about as unfair as saying all dogs, or all people, are alike.

Squigeon and Goose have their own routines, favourite foods, ways of reacting to new situations and completely different personalities. The longer I’ve watched them, the more I’ve realised that “pigeon” tells you what species they are, not who they are.
And who they are…
…are my best friends.

If you’d like to see even more pictures and videos of my pigeons, click the image below to take you to my Instagram account that has been overrun with pigeon posts and videos.