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No, definitely not pigeons for breakfast.

Out for a walk on the morning of February 2, 2011. Bloor St. just east of Symington Ave. Someone frequently leaves food here for the birds. It's actually kind of gross most of the time: It looks like piles of leftovers get dumped here, probably feeding the rats and raccoons just as much as the birds.

Someone hung these pigeon silhouettes on the fence of the former TTC streetcar yard at Lansdowne and Paton. There are a few other silhouettes hung on this fence too, adding a bit of life to the fence around this derelict property.

This is the last bunch of pictures of the pigeon chick on my balcony. It seemed to be doing really well, but on the morning of March 2nd I discovered that the pigeon chick was dead. I'm guessing it had something to do with the cold weather.

Over the last few days I watched as the chick grew, became more active, and grew more feathers. It was also getting much more vocal, and I could often hear it chirping. It was fun watching it grow up for as long as it did, so I was kind of sad to find it dead that morning.

Click here to see the final pictures and a video clip of the little chick. R.I.P.
More pictures and stories about this pigeon chick can be found here.

On February 2nd, I discovered some pigeon eggs on my balcony. Well, after keeping an eye on the nest and watching the mother and father pigeons constantly sitting on the eggs for over 20 days, I finally got to see the chicks today.

As I sat eating breakfast infront of my computer (drinking a cocoa banana coffee tofu yogurt smoothie straight from the blender), I noticed that the parent pigeons had flown away. I hadn't seen the nest without a parent in it for well over a week now, so I jumped at the chance to look.

Sure enough, there was a pigeon chick in there. It must have been born at least a few days ago. Apparently it takes about 18 days for the eggs to hatch, and I first discovered the eggs 21 days ago... But the parents have been spending most of their time sitting on the eggs and the chicks to keep them warm.

One of the chicks didn't survive. There was real cold snap right around the time I figure they were born. I wonder if the parents purposely gave this one up to make it easier to keep the other one warm for survival?

It'll be neat watching this pigeon grow up over the next few weeks, but I'm looking forward to the day it leaves so that I can clean up my balcony again!

More pictures over here!

Part of my usual morning routine is to chase the pigeons away from my balcony. Yes, it's futile, because they usually return in a minute or two. Ohwell. Anyway, over the last few days I noticed there were more pigeons than usual hanging around here, and they would return faster after I chased them away. Plus, there was almost always one sitting in the flower planter on the ground. Upon closer inspection this morning, I noticed two eggs in there. No wonder the pigeon was always in a rush to come back.

More pictures and commentary over here.