Whilst on lunch at work today I witnessed a perculiar sight. Next to the tow path at Two Waters, across the canal from B&Q, 5 WOODPIGEONS were also having their lunch, feeding on Ivy berries. Now I know that doesn't sound very out of the ordinary, it isn't, but their style of feeding was. At least 3 of the pigeons were hanging completely upside-down, dangling & swinging by their feet to reach the fruits! The Ivy is undercut so there are few places to perch & the branches are flimsy anyway so these Pigeons had decided to try out their acrobatic skills, & it worked, all the birds managing to voraciously consume any berries in swinging distance. Viewing from afar they resembled African Grey Parrots, but although quite closely related to Parakeets, & despite occasionally seeing a Woodie tip over reaching food from time to time, I certainly didn't expect to ever see a group of them conciously feeding trapeze artist style. I managed to snap the following pics with my compact camera at full zoom, into the sun, then cropped, so they're not great, but you get the picture...
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| Woodpigeons feeding upside-down beside the tow path at Two Waters. |
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| A Woodpigeon feeding upside-down & spread-eagled beside the tow path at Two Waters. |
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Yes! We also saw this today outside of the Frieze Masters, London. At first it seemed like a religious image- something out of the very still lifes we had just seen. My wife reached out to touch the image, and as she did so, the bird front-flipped into a dismount and dangerously swooped near a passerby's head!
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