The Pigeon Detectives

I like a mystery. I like a good old-fashioned whodunnit. Don’t get me wrong Breaking Bad, Mad Men, they’re great TV but they’re no Morse are they? They’re no Poirot. What I don’t like however is a real life mystery; in real life I like order, structure, reason and definitely no surprises so when the bodies of pigeons began to mount up in alarming numbers it was, to say the least, unsettling.
Okay, it wasn’t as if you had to wear a hard hat outdoors for fear of suddenly deceased falling birds but the sinister appearance of dozens of pigeon corpses was nonetheless macabre and too disturbing to be ignored. As always the internet is the first port of call for investigations of this kind and once you’ve managed to filter out the crackpot conspiracy theories – really, I don’t think the CIA are all that fussed about the Loire Valley pigeon population – there were a number of potential explanations.
Trichomoniasis, common in pigeons apparently, is related to the human STD of the same name which suggests that pigeons, particularly the racing kind I suspect, are putting it about with wild abandon. There’s a line in the Blur song ‘Parklife’ which implies that pigeons are highly sexed creatures, “They love a bit of it!” Phil Daniels claims, which is scant evidence on which to base what appears to be some kind of epidemic, but, no pun intended, we were fumbling around in the dark here. Whatever it is it’s fatal, but because most of the victims we’ve found are pretty mangled we can’t gather the proof.
The other possibility, though less likely, was that we had a visitor. A rapacious mass murderer who clearly had a grudge against pigeons and wasn’t going to stop until he’d wiped them all out. It seemed slightly far-fetched but the tell-tale signs were there, for example decapitation. The weasel likes to rip the heads off its victims, one suspects it’s a power thing, a symbol of victory in the same way I used to treat my little sister’s Barbie dolls but surely pigeons were too big even for an angry, bitter, pigeon-hating weasel. The Fouine, in English the Pine Marten was a much more likely suspect and, sexually transmitted diseases aside, far more worrying. An aggressive hunter of this size  wouldn’t think twice about attacking the kitten or even Gigi the Chiweenie but the hens of course were particularly vulnerable, so when it was obvious that something was digging tunnels into their coop, action was needed, I will not have my ladies upset.
We had talked about moving the hen coop before but with it being seemingly under attack it was now urgent. They haven’t been laying for weeks anyway and Tallulah’s mental breakdown means that the brood was tense to say the least, so maybe a change of scenery would do them good. Of course moving the coop a couple of metres to the right is hardly a massive change of scenery at all but we laid down a proper would floor so that any night time intruders couldn’t actually get the hens at all. They weren’t happy. The four of them stood in a group watching as we lifted their home onto its new base, clucking disapprovingly and eyeing the whole thing with suspicion. Their demeanour suggesting that they thought this was very much the thin end of the wedge and that strong complaints would be made. Tallulah was the first to investigate, venturing nervously in while the others waited outside for her verdict; despite being obviously quite insane, Tallulah is still the de facto leader and treated accordingly though I suspect that it’s a bit like The Madness of King George in that the real decisions are made elsewhere. After a couple of minutes Tallulah hadn’t re-emerged, giving the signal that all was well and that the others come in, which they did gingerly only to be then chased out by a screaming Tallulah who was having one of her more violent turns and should probably be given a wide berth.
The patch of ground that the coop had previously stood on was a vile mess. Three years of chicken poop had moulded into a kind of chipboard flooring and when I lifted it with a spade it came up in one, two metre squared block. As I raised it though it revealed underneath a labyrinth of tunnels, at the heart of which sat a huge, filthy rat. There was a brief comic pause as the rat and I caught each other’s eyes, I thought he was going to tell me to clear off such was his air of belligerence, but then he just bolted.
Toby and Gigi gave chase, neither of them really knowing why but instinct just kicking in and they disappeared towards the pond. We couldn’t see them from where we stood but the screams were not good. The rat, cornered, had obviously gone for Gigi and she was making a dreadful, heart wrenching racket...and then suddenly there was silence. Toby and Gigi slowly made their way back to us, Gigi bleeding heavily from the nose where the rat had obviously taken a hold and Toby with a kind of ‘thousand yard stare’ about him. He had killed the rat, his first ever kill and now, the pacifist that he is, was feeling terribly guilty about the whole thing and certainly didn’t understand the praise he was getting for rescuing Gigi.
The rat corpse was removed and piled up with pigeon bodies, a grisly, war-like sight that continued to grow as the pigeon death count mounted up relentlessly. Natalie reported that the crows were attacking sluggish pigeons mid-air like a fighter plane skirmish but again it couldn’t account for the sheer volume of deaths. In the end though, it’s not the internet that solves these mysteries, it’s local knowledge for which there is no substitute. We live between two large farms, one run by a friendly, do anything for you gentle soul, Monsieur Rousseau and the other by a sociopath who threatened to shoot our children, Monsieur Giresse. Monsieur Rousseau delivered the monthly hay and walked around the property with Natalie, intrigued and baffled by the avian carnage. He even took a carcass away with him for further investigation. The next day Natalie phoned him again, there’d been another killing she said portentously. Rousseau didn’t hesitate and brought round a local expert who he said, would hopefully find an explanation.
He did too. Monsieur Giresse it seems has been lazy in preparing his fields and has left the corn stalks and some of the corn husks unploughed. We suspect he’s done this to provide ‘sport’ for his shooting parties, something for the specially-bred pheasant cannon fodder to hide behind before being blasted apart. The problem though is that corn left in this state is poisonous to the pigeon, it expands in their gullet and leaves them unable to breathe and therefore fatal.
“Ah.” Said Monsieur Rousseau nervously, “I’ll have a word with Giresse, tell him to get it sorted out.” And has the charmless Monsieur Giresse obliged? There’s no mystery in the answer to that.
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