I usually pass him by while rushing across the Luas tracks at the corner of Stephen’s Green and Grafton Street, one of his favourite spots. But in no particular rush the other day, I stopped to chat with Dublin’s Pigeon Man, or one of them anyway.
Daniel, the only name he goes by, is an international pigeon man, it turns out. A native Berliner, he still feeds pigeons there too occasionally (although he’s not supposed to) and “in seven countries”, including Ireland, where he’s been a regular visitor for the past eight years.
He only feeds the pigeons when he’s “not working”. But what he works at, I never found out exactly because his soft-spoken, elliptical answers had to compete with street noise and a constant stream of other people asking him to pose for pictures.
He told me he was a “geneticist” and a “doctor” by profession. I’ve heard since, however, that he also does voluntary work with homelessness charities, here and elsewhere. Which would explain why, when I and others asked for a picture, he prefaced his agreement by suggesting a “donation for the homeless” first.
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Happy to oblige, I reached for my pocket, then realised I’d changed trousers earlier and all my cash was in the other ones. So, because that sounded like an excuse, I further excused myself to visit an ATM and get him €20.
By the time I returned, he was posing for and answering questions from an American woman, although she had no cash either and promised to come back later in the day.
When I got a word in edgeways, finally, I wondered why Dublin’s rapacious seagulls never came near him. The answer, it seems, is that they don’t like oatmeal, which is all that’s on offer from his hold-all.
But pigeons “flock”, he points out, being naturally sociable birds, while seagulls are “loners” and more aggressive with each other. Not that he’s being judgmental. “I’ve never met a bad animal,” he adds.
Part of the Pigeon Man experience is that he turns others into pigeon people too. No sooner have you taken a picture than, unbidden, he fills your hands with meal. Whereupon, within seconds, you too have a pigeon perched on each, feeding, while others form a queue on your shoulders, head, or the ground around you.
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Some might find this alarming, until the gentle Daniel – who looks a bit like a late-career Max Von Sydow – reassures the nervous that the birds don’t bite.
Maybe there’s a risk that if they were on your head long enough, they might do on it what they do on statues. But mine were impeccably behaved for their short residency, before the beep of a Luas sent then scattering.
Even then, the one on my right hand stayed put, unusually calm and now studying me with a bright, orange eye at close quarters, while taking a break from feeding.
I was reminded that, for pigeon fanciers, the birds’ eyes are all-important. In the breeding ads of the weekly Racing Pigeon magazine, full side profiles of stud pigeons are invariably accompanied by close-ups of one of the eyes, wherein a practised fancier can judge the bird’s health, racing talent, and breeding potential.
I sensed that in our staring match, my bird learned more about me than vice versa. Either way, it was a moment of man-pigeon communion. I felt better for it afterwards.
The late Tom Lehrer probably wasn’t serious when he extolled the avicidal joys of “poisoning pigeons in the park”. Unfortunately, many people do consider these friendly creatures to be vermin, or something close to it.
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In Daniel’s native country last year, the town of Limburg an der Lahn voted in a referendum, by a margin similar to the UK’s Brexit vote, to exterminate the local pigeon population, although after protests, the planned falconry campaign was called off.
If not despised, Dublin’s pigeons are at best overlooked these days as they scramble for a living on the margins of a bird economy dominated by bigger and more glamorous gulls. But not only are pigeons capable of prodigious feats of athleticism and orientation, they have often been great friends to humanity in times of crisis.
The French government once struck a special medal to honour their role in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), when they carried microfilm messages into besieged Paris to help the city’s resistance. Races still commemorate the feat annually.
Then there was “Paddy the Pigeon”, the only Irish recipient of the Dickin medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross, for delivering coded messages about the Allied advance after D-Day to an RAF base back in England.
Good news travelled fast when Paddy was carrying it. The Antrim-born pigeon made the 230-mile trip from Normandy to Dorset in 4 hours and 50 minutes, quickest of the hundreds of birds used. He then went on to enjoy a long and leisurely retirement as a war hero, before dying at a good age for a pigeon and a fine one for a soldier: 11.
