I Piccioni

Pigeons? Seem ordinary enough, why would there be a post on pigeons? Ah, because there is so much to tell about pigeons in Viterbo...

They are everywhere. They love to hide out in all the old crevices in stone walls and buildings.

Pigeons tucked inside the walls enclosing Viterbo

We even discovered two baby pigeons outside of Max's window (he named them Flip and Flap).

Baby pigeons discovered during Santa Rosa

They have a very loud and persistent coo (fortunately, this is not a sleep issue for me, unlike for my friend Amy who has them outside her bedroom window).

They are such a menace with structures in town, that many window sills have metal spikes jutting up (to no avail).

See those metal spikes? These pigeons are laughing at the stupid person who came up with the idea. Duh, pigeons can fly over them.

SYA had to spend 3,500 euro just to put pigeon netting around the loggia because every Monday they would come back to piles of pigeon poop and the cleaning people were sick of it.

Do you see all the feathers that have floated by and stuck to the netting?

Falling feathers in Viterbo are as common as falling leaves in New England. It is almost as common to see a pigeon feather on the ground as it is to see a cigarette butt.

(townspeople definitely wondered why I was taking this photo)

When we first moved here, the place had been empty -- I'm guessing -- for awhile. There was a lot of dried up pigeon poop on the terrace which I swept up and dumped in the planters (living above two busy streets, it's not like I can sweep it off the edge!). Once Figgy and Pickles established their presence, the pigeons pretty much stopped coming around and things were relatively clean. However, with rain and lower temperatures for the last week, we've had the terrace doors closed, preventing our warrior cats from guarding the property. I went out there today (first sunny day in a long time) to find mounds of soggy pigeon poop (because of rain).  All over the steps, all over the terrace.  Yuck.  It's not like it could be swept up...too mushy. Then I had an ingenious idea -- the hose! While I wasn't so good about using it to keep the plants alive, I could use it to spray off all the poop. Indeed, it worked. The next problem was that after doing the steps and beginning of terrace, the whole terrace was a huge puddle and I began to worry about where the water was going to go...Was I about to ruin someone's peaceful Sunday morning? So I left the job only partway done (there's a shock). As gross as it is, I feel you need to get a sense of the quantity. Here's a pic of Pickles inspecting my work -- check out all the "texture" on the terrace.  Yup, soggy pigeon poop.