A Eulogy for Little Guy
Deceased? Flew to another building? He’s probably dead
This is Little Guy. We became close — literally.
Of all the birds one can find on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (I’m excluding what Central Park birders find with binoculars: owls and eagles, to name two) the most common are finches, grackles, pigeons, robins, and sparrows. On occasion, pigeons would alight on my air conditioner, but it was only three or so years ago that mourning doves started showing up. Like all birds, they would fly off at the slightest movement by me, in this case, when I pulled back my blinds to get a closer look.
I would always shoo away pigeons, whereas I instantly took a liking to mourning doves. I like the sound of their hooting (though not necessarily at 6:00 in the morning) and decided I would put out a tray of food on top of the air conditioner. Most of them caught on quickly: “Hey, guys. We’ve got it made over here. This guy is always putting out food.” For a while a cute couple would show up and share the dish. I knew they were a couple because when they weren’t on my air conditioner I could see them gently pecking at each other on a railing just on the other side of the building.
On many occasions single doves would show up only to be joined by an interloper, which led to some brutal fights. I never knew mourning doves could be so vicious with each other. I remember one dove that relentlessly pecked at another dove, really whaling away, and seeing, after the victim flew off, a feather stuck in the mouth of the attacker.
But then there was one mourning dove who figured it out: “This guy isn’t a threat. There’s no reason for me to fly away when he reaches out with his scoop of food.” Translation: I was a friend. He wasn’t afraid. He trusted me. The evidence is the photo you see above, which I took just seconds after leaving more food. Prior to taking the photo he would just stand there as I replenished the plate. Or sometimes he would just scoot over a bit as I did my thing. I loved watching those cute, let-me-give-you-some-room moves.
Sometimes Little Guy could be demanding. Here he is, craning his neck to give me a guilt trip:
Now, did I inadvertently train this dove to not be afraid of me, or was he just smart and figured out what all the other doves apparently couldn’t? I’ll never know or could know. But this I do know: He’s gone. Mourning doves live on average for two to four years. Confirming my hunch that I will never see Little Guy again is the date on which I took the photo that you see at the top of this piece: November 29, 2022.
Little Guy has left the building. We were pals and I’m going to miss him.
Barry Lyons is a freelance writer living in New York City. He writes about all sorts of things: the Second Amendment, the Beatles, how to properly use the apostrophe s, and the five Indiana Jones movies.
