I sometimes chuckle at dumb birds, especially if it happens to be a pigeon.
Mind you, pigeons are considered to be one of the most intelligent birds on the planet. The pigeon can recognize all 26 letters of the English alphabet. The pigeon can also pass the ‘mirror test’ (being able to recognize its reflection in a mirror). It is one of the only 6 species, and the only non-mammal, to possess this ability.
Well, I don’t know whether this particular pigeon was really a no-brainer or just feigning ignorance. The pigeon had purposefully or mistakenly slipped inside the living room. Perhaps, this was when I was in another room.
On closer look, he seemed to be Pintoo, Pikoo’s younger brother. As I came back to the living room, I saw him struggling to get out through the gap created by the sliding windows.
Infact, only the rightmost of the three windowpanes was open. Pintoo ambled upto the leftmost window, tried to go out, but hit the windowpane. He repeated the same movement again and again – left pane and middle pane, left and middle, and so on. Everytime he collided with the windowpane.
Somehow, Pintoo never tried to move just an inch to the right of the middle windowpane. Here the entire right window had been pushed back to create a big opening. Perhaps, the poor pigeon had assumed that opening to be a windowpane, and never tried to approach it.
Even I did not try to help. A confused pigeon in trying circumstances might react irrationally to human intervention.
VENKATESH 