I attended an online celebration of pigeons last night with Wild Life Drawing, and the author Charlie Bingham (not Charlie Bigham, the brand of delicious ready meals) as part of a new Book Club initiative by the WLD team. I have Charlie’s book, The Life Affirming Magic of Birds, which I enjoyed, although it was slightly preaching to the choir in my case. I am all for championing people’s first forays into wildlife appreciation, and as Charlie mentions, pigeons are a “gateway bird” as they are ubiquitous, bold, and offer all of us the chance to interact with a wild animal. Much maligned and regarded as pests by many, Feral Pigeons are nonetheless astonishingly resilient, and provide an animation and energy to our urban settings which we should perhaps see as a positive addition to our towns and cities. Lest we forget, homing pigeons have saved countless lives during wars across the globe, and the birds we see in our towns are the descendants of released and escaped domesticated birds, so should we be so disparaging about them? I think not.
I had seen the resource photos for the Zoom and felt they were rather uninspiring, so decided to take some of my own as I was visiting my daughter; Tunbridge Wells has a large pigeon population. Rose was deeply embarrassed by my touristy behaviour – especially as I was clearly British – but I did get some good shots for my drawing inspiration later. They are stunning birds, and although the ones I saw were mainly the “typical” rock Dove colourway, as previously mentioned, their forerunners were domesticated and bred for their different plumage, hence the array we see today on our streets.
Here are the drawings (and a tiny collage) I did during the Zoom. I’m really pleased how they turned out, and how I managed to convey the shine on their feathers using matt gouache!
