Obesity has occupied a significant portion of media attention in the past few decades. There is a lot of concern in relation to people’s expanding waistlines, something that has induced a lot of people to take up running. However, there is another obesity crisis lurking in the urban landscape – that of overweight pigeons.
The precise reason behind this explosion in pigeon obesity cannot be pinpointed, although I did once witness a highly intoxicated man drunkenly feeding an opportunistic pigeon Kentucky Fried Chicken late at night, something which may have played a factor.
Whilst running in the park earlier this week, I came across a small child feeding a group of ducks that had wandered into the middle of the pathway. It was a blissful sight that caressed my senses with the sweet scent of nostalgia. I had almost passed the child when the atmosphere suddenly changed. I looked around and spotted a pigeon approaching from where it had been lurking behind a vacated bench.
I had never seen a pigeon like it. This bird was the godfather of all overweight pigeons.
Now I have lived most of my life in an urban area and, as a result, have seen a lot of fat pigeons. But this was a mutant of its race. So shocked was I by its size that I have taken it upon myself to create a term with which to define this bird – Godzilla Pigeon.
I will attempt to give you some idea of what we are dealing with here.
This is a normal pigeon:
This is the image that came up when I googled the phrase ‘fattest pigeon ever’:
wandagomez.com
Not even this picture can do justice to the sheer magnitude of Godzilla pigeon’s bulging frame. Its feathers could barely cover its engorged body. Its neck had been almost totally consumed by its engorged breast. Two eyes and a beak squatted directly on top of its torso. It had, by the looks of things, lost the capacity to fly and instead exerted its dominance over the other occupants of the park with a debilitated waddle.
The small child abandoned his bread and ran terrified to his mother. The ducks scattered in Godzilla’s wake. Even a passing squirrel fled from its tyrannical presence.
I stopped running and watched in horror as the pigeon approached the bread and began to wolf it down at an alarming rate. I was displeased with Godzilla pigeon. It had consumed enough bread to last it for several lifetimes whilst the ducks looked on timidly from a safe distance away. I decided that I would use my running skills to scare the pigeon off. I would liberate the park from this fiend. I ran full-speed at the bird.
Godzilla pigeon did not move. It looked at me. It looked at me some more. Step on me, its eyes seemed to say. Go on. I dare you.
I was pretty sure that this pigeon could take me if any physical confrontation arose. So I backed off fast. Later, when I arrived home and my flatmate asked me how my run was, I did not mention that I had been ousted by a fat pigeon. I simply informed him that it had been ‘adequate’ and left to hang my head in shame in the privacy of my own bedroom.
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