Pigeons: noble species or flying wizards of Satan?
I bring this courtesy of the same friend who provided the pie wank. This one isn't really wank, but I don't think there's an OTF_snark comm, and it's too funny not to post.

A story is posted in the Surrey Comet about Kingston's intention of having marksmen cull the pigeon population. Almost immediately, the discussion in the comments becomes hyperbolic:

Pigeons carry all manner of diseases like AIDS, malaria, rabies and mad cow disease to name but a few. They are also very aggressive and I can vouch for this as I was attacked by a flock and pecked severely while on my way home from flower arranging classes. In fact I would be more than happy to help in the killing of these evil creatures.

The next comment declares them "flying wizards of Satan" and the discussion really takes off:

I myself was raised by pigeons after being abandoned in Trafalgar Square as a young nipper. Therefore I know how noble and generous a species they really are.

I know what you mean, reader. I was raised by yaks but I'm sure the experience was similar. How about a council worker cull instead.

My elder sister was held captive for nine days by a flock of rock pigeons on a small island near Malta in 1979 - it may have been Gozo but I'm not too sure. (Sorry about that.) As you might gather she suffers from nightmares and flashbacks but she has also developed a loathing of millet seeds for some strange reason. She is in full support of the cull and, in actual fact, she has already applied for the job and fully intends to carry out her duties as soon as possible - whether she gets the job or not. Be careful around town folks - she's not a good shot.

Posted by: yeltsin Dont worry. we have ways of dealing with pigeons who have defecated from the KGB. we have booked with BA already.

There are too many gems in the comments to quote them all. There is a feeble attempt at wank by one or two posters apparently serious about the issue, but it is quickly drowned out by lists of imaginative ways to cull pigeons, Mrs. Dallinger's OT efforts to understand her new email account, and Monty Python references. Oh, and the squirrel population weighs in.

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	hallidae 2008-02-06 05:19 am UTC (link)
	Squirrels are fucking scary, man. The ones on campus are so winter-fat that they look like cats, and they'll still chase your ass down if you go outside with food. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	frequentmouse 2008-02-06 07:30 am UTC (link)
	I had two of them mug me for an icecream cone once. And they creep me out when they stand on the step and stare into the house through the dining room slider. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

hallidae
2008-02-06 07:37 am UTC (link)

We had a voyeur squirrel at the apartment when I lived in Savannah. He'd purposely sit on a branch that faced into our bathroom and watch which ever of the three of us was showering at the time. We couldn't curtain him out either, because the window was too tall and the bathroom too narrow to get a ladder in for hanging. I finally lost my temper and threw a jar of pink paint at him one morning.

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	maev_connacht 2008-02-06 03:56 pm UTC (link)
	I had one of those in college! I lived in a room across from the roof of another building, and the squirrel would sit on the roof and watch me change. (Reply to this)(Parent)

magic_lilybean
2008-02-06 03:55 pm UTC (link)

When I was a kid we had some squirrels infiltrate our attic (someone had planted trees too close to the house; they damaged parts of the house as they grew and of course the branches made it very easy for the critters to get right in there). In the summertime we would open the stairwell because there was a big fan in the window at the top of the stairs, and it made for great air circulation.

Well, one night one of those squirrels came right down the stairs and into the house. Only s/h/it didn't make it back up - s/h/it was still loitering in the living room when everyone woke up and startled it. It then skittered behind the piano, where s/h/it lived for a couple days as we tried to figure out WTF to do.

It was entertaining because s/h/it would do little recitals when we were out of the room, but nobody wanted to be in the living room with a wild animal, and after a while the plink-plink-plink of a squirrel on the keys isn't really as entertaining as playing it yourself. Eventually we got a humane trap for it. Dad released it out in a field on the family farm, and he swears he saw it stop, get its bearings for a moment, and take off in the direction of our home across town.

You would think this little episode would result in better home maintanance on the part of the 'rents, but no. Still, we never had another squirrel come down, so I guess we were lucky.

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	waitwut 2008-02-06 06:32 pm UTC (link)
	I just had one, sit outside the window of our lunch room, staring at me. Yes, it's a college campus. Yes, they're the size of cats. (Yes, it's a ground floor room) It was still really creepy. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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