bird karma

Wednesday, October 15, 2003, at 06:54PM

By Eric Richardson

California really introduced me to pigeons. I mean, sure, they'd been around before, but never really AROUND. Here, they're AROUND. I was sitting at the Carl's Jr. on campus the other day, enjoying my chicken strips, just people watching. At a table a few feet from me sat a girl, by herself. It was a big round table and she wasn't using much of it. She's just minding her own business, eating, and there's a big pigeon standing on the opposite edge of the table, staring her down. The table edges are rounded, so the bird's having to work a little. Its back claws keep slipping, and it keeps having to adjust, but its head isn't moving. It's just staring at her.

Most people would wave the bird away, thinking its mere presense within feet of their food would bring disease, but she didn't. She just sat there, eating. Freshman year Steve (another favorite) would have said that this was correct, and that the birds would notice and recipricate your kindness. I don't know that I buy that.

An army of crows could make like easier, though. "It'a a murder honey, a group of crows is called a murder."