Frequently encountered in urban areas, pigeons (Columba livia) evoke polar opposite passions in people who live among them. Called doves, they have an image of purity, harmony and tranquility. As pigeons (a French synonym for dove), they are often pejoratively characterized as dirty, stooges (as in 
stoolpigeon), and feebly passive. So common we hardly notice them in any detail, the birds generally fade to background.
As doves, pigeons are revered symbols of peace, like the white dove that brought Noah an olive branch sustaining his faith in a subsiding flood. Reviled as filthy pests, they are “rats with wings” as Woody Allen observed in his 1980 film Stardust Memories. City pigeons are fed by devoted fanciers in parks. But they are also poisoned and frightened away by governments and building owners because the average pigeon produces more than twenty-five pounds of droppings a year, and the acidic dung is both unsightly and corrosive. But love them or hate them, with a close look it’s hard not to marvel at their beauty and engaging behaviors.
