(Private) life of birds

As I was putting out an enormous pile of CDs on the shop floor today - I work in a record shop, in case you were wondering, and yes, it is the classical department - my gaze was drawn to two pigeons out on the roof whose behaviour intrigued me. They appeared to be having something of a stand-off, constantly circling each other and occasionally breaking off when one of them pecked at the other. I say "pecked", but that word doesn't do justice to the way it seemed to thrust its beak down the other's throat. When they separated again, it looked as if both were chewing, almost as if the attacker had been trying to get at some food the other had snatched first. Greedy beggar!

I was just starting to wonder if it was always the same one on the attack, when one of them mounted the other, thrust backwards and forwards a few times then climbed off again, at which stage the two went off in opposite directions, one nonchalant while the other appeared a bit shell-shocked. Can't blame it, really ...

It's the first time I've seen birds at it: at school, a friend of mine once gleefully pointed out a couple of small birds on a drainpipe, shagging like rabbits, only I didn't take much interest, and some years later, at university, I happened upon two ducks left to their own devices during the mating season, at a time when all the others had umpteen drakes after them. Perhaps inevitably, I concluded they had to be lesbians.

As a colleague of mine pointed out afterwards, pigeons may be vermin, but it was still a sight that left me grinning inanely.