'Proud and Fond of the Flock,' She Takes Tribeca Pigeons Under Her Wing

Pigeons are aflutter on Duane Street each afternoon when Laurie Spiegel arrives to feed them. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

For 20 years, Laurie Spiegel has been feeding pigeons almost daily near Tribeca’s Duane Park. A loft dweller in the neighborhood since 1976, she is a composer widely known for her pioneering work in the field of electronic and computer-generated music, and the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and awards. Her “daily bird break” with the pigeons usually begins a couple of hours before sunset and often includes caring for a bird in distress. Trib editor Carl Glassman interviewed Spiegel about her caring for pigeons.

I first got to know pigeons in an experimental psych course in college, where I took care of a pigeon coop and I learned how smart and friendly and interested in interacting with us they were. I moved here in 1976 and there were already pigeons living in Tribeca—which we called “LoCal” at the time for “below Canal.”

Before gentrification, food was stored in warehouses here, and when it was moved, food would sometimes drop on the street. Also, workers who ate their lunches on the loading docks or in the park would feed the birds. Some kept bowls of water for the pigeons on the loading docks, too. The first local birds I got to know well nested on my window ledge one year and they raised a family there. 

Before 9/11, a lot of birds used to hang out on the plaza at the old World Trade Center and get fed when people had lunch there. Right after the 9/11 disaster, a bunch of them flew up here. Some had wires hanging from them, or they had burnt feathers or other injuries. That’s when I began taking in birds and trying to care for them. 

That period was hard on people here, but it was really hard on the birds and other local wildlife of this area, too. I took them in sometimes if they needed care. Some of them were in really bad shape. Then, about 2004, I started feeding them regularly in the streets, meeting the window ledge family who already knew me down in the street. Often a bird would be injured and needing care. It was easier to provide it if they knew and trusted and came to me, and by feeding them, more birds and I got to know and trust each other.

Why do you feed them?

I figure they should have one meal a day—at least part of their diet—that’s species appropriate, contains vitamins and protein and all the other stuff they need. Pigeons in this city basically live on discarded hot dog bun ends and pizza crusts and potato chips. I mean, if we lived on pizza crusts and hot dog bun ends, our immune and other systems wouldn’t be in very good shape either. They are naturally vegetarians, so I give them a mixture of various dried grains and dried peas.

Besides feeding the pigeons, what are other ways you care for the birds?

Their claws very often get all tangled up in thread or human hair or dental floss or string. I’ve seen them flying around with tea bags hanging from them if they get the string caught on their toes. If they try to get it off it usually only knots up and gets tighter. I always carry tweezers and small scissors with me, so I can cut it off. It happens really quite often.

People need to learn to be really careful not to let thread, hair and the like end up in the streets. Think what it would feel like to have a very tight rubber band around your toes, sometimes with a stick or sharp object caught in it. People generally don’t look closely at these birds. But when you do, you can sometimes see that they really could use some human help because we create all these problems that they can’t deal with themselves that result from us, that we humans are responsible for.

Are you sometimes called on to help a bird that’s in trouble?

Yes. The mail carrier and Amazon delivery people have brought me injured birds. Just last week, people from one of the restaurants on my block came and got me because there was a pigeon in their doorway, just lying there, that couldn’t stand up. She had an injured very swollen leg and also was very dehydrated. I kept her in my loft overnight and gave her water and food and she perked up a good bit. The next day I took her to the wildlife care center uptown where they took care of her, because the leg needed an x-ray and additional treatment, and for her to rest while it healed. 

We are very lucky to have had the Wild Bird Fund [1] the past decade or so, a place to take injured wildlife for medical care. Before that, we had to pay for veterinary care or figure out what we could do for them ourselves.

What do you see in pigeons that most other people don’t?

They bond socially very strongly, with strong family and friend relationships that are lifelong, not only among themselves but also with us humans. The males and females both share in caring for the nest and raising and teaching their little ones. They’re strong and dedicated. I mean, these were the messenger birds that kept the Babylonian Empire together and were the engine that established the Reuters News Service. They have rescued many people in our world wars. 

And they’re incredibly smart and willing to learn. They’ve been tested and they have as much ability to manipulate numbers as primates do. Put them in front of a computer and they can do all the same tests pecking at the keyboard. They recognize letter patterns and up to maybe 50 written words. I’ve actually known people who’ve house trained them, so they will sit on the edge of a waste basket and poop into it. They’ve always been kept and loved as pets.

You don’t believe that they spread disease?

I’ve been handling pigeons for decades and I know quite a few other people who help pigeons and rescue them and take care of them. I’ve never known anybody who got sick from them. There are a few people who may be allergic to them, as is the case for cats and dogs, too. You want to wash your hands after handling them because they live in the streets. But fears of disease from them seem to be greatly exaggerated. Because they don’t eat insects or worms, they actually have fewer pathogens than lots of other birds.

You’ve called pigeons the “avian analog to dogs.” 

Yes, “avian dogs.” Just as we bred dogs from wolves when we were hunter-gatherers, when the agrarian revolution happened and our species started cultivating the land to raise grain, these birds began to hang around us much like the wolves must have at first. We selectively bred them and we found we could train them to carry messages. So, like dogs, pigeons became and were used as working animals for humanity for thousands of years. But when we no longer needed them for long distance communications, except for a few show and racing specialty breeds, pigeons were abandoned to live on their own. 

In the U.S., dogs are our pets, but these birds live in the streets. In some countries it’s the opposite. Pigeons are pets, and dogs live feral in the streets. There are people who take care of feral dogs in those countries and probably take flak for doing it —the way I sometimes am told off by passing strangers for feeding and caring for the pigeons. In Delhi, India, there’s an actual hospital devoted to pigeons and birds. In this neighborhood, if people found an injured dog lying in the street, almost everyone would stop to help it. But there are only a few people who would help an injured pigeon.

How many of the birds do you actually recognize over time?

Oh God, I recognize a lot more than I have names for. One I call Sidesaddle because of the mark she has on one side of her back. She's been around here for a decade or so. If well cared for, they can live well into their 20s, but in this city their lifespan is typically much shorter. Citywide, they experience a lot of malnutrition, or cars hit them or they’re attacked by dogs or cats or rats. They could go live in the woods or the country but they seem to genuinely want to live among humans, so all cities seem to have them. They are, after all, a species we humans created. They really do seem to want to be close to us and to experience a bond with us, when we let them.

After the bird I call “Sidesaddle” lost a foot several years ago due to an untreated thread injury, I took her in for a while and kept her in my loft while she was healing. But like all birds who grow up free, she was glad to be free again when she had healed. For quite a few of these birds I knew their parents, sometimes their grandparents by now, and which ones are siblings or rivals or good friends or mates.

What do people who don’t like you feeding the birds say to you?

People sometimes yell at me. They say it’s disgusting, it’s horrible, that it’s like I am breeding rats and disease, even that I’m bringing down their property values.

And what do you say back?

I try to ignore them, mostly. Sometimes I yell back or just try to explain. People see me as the crazy old lady who feeds pigeons. But I’m proud of and very fond of this flock. We have probably one of the very healthiest flocks in the city because they’re taken care of. When you go to other neighborhoods, the birds are often in terrible shape. You can tell from the condition of their feathers, and they’re weak. They might have motor oil or tar or other gunk on them. A lot of them are limping and you can tell they’re in pain. It’s sad. There are other people all over the city though who also care about pigeons, little flocks of them here and there who have a human individual who cares about them, like here, and that can be beautiful.

Do they know when it’s dinnertime, even before you feed them?

Yes. They’re aware of the daily patterns of human activity, which is how they tell time. And I always go out on my fire escape just briefly before I come down to the street to feed them. When I do this, the whole flock will take off up in the air and swirl around, all excited. Often some of them will come over and land on the fire escape just to say hello. That’s part of our ritual. Animals seem to like rituals, a series of things we and they do together, where we each follow a pattern of behavior in response to what the other species is doing.

This must feel like a lot of responsibility.

Our species created their species, and we used them as vital working animal partners for thousands of years, and their species came through for us, often in very dangerous situations. So don’t we have a responsibility to take care of them?

Laurie Spiegel shot this video of a flock of pigeons circling above Duane Street. In describing the scene, she writes: "For those who have not looked up and seen them, the flock as a social unit on a sunny day."