Plump Pink Pigeon Pie

So there’s this pigeon – plump and pink, a cut above his three blue-grey companions.

I knew he knew his mustard as he soared from the hotel rafters to the swimming pool; the others flapped.

Pinkie wasn’t first to drink. He held back as his friends, one after the other, waddled to the water lapping onto the baking tiles from the length swimmers. Head up, neck straight, he waited as the others quaffed, each miniscule sip punctuated by 360 degree surveillance.

Puffing his plump chest, Pinkie strode forward, winging the blue-greys out of the way. Was his beak a straw? No up-and-down motion for him so intent was he on draining the pool.

A belly-flopper caused a flurry. Back to the rafters flapped the scrawny three. Unperturbed Pinkie drank on, pausing only as a goggled swimmer, completing a length, somersaulted and torpedoed away. Pinkie’s beak dipped as, coast clear, his friends flapped down.

They had scarcely landed when, beyond the Frangipanis, a cat yowled. In a whirl of worry, the three were off again, despite heat and thirst.

Not Pinkie now quenched. Too hot to fly, he dove like a penguin into the bright blue pool, causing a tsunami with his flutterings. Suddenly, with inimitable manoeuvres, he was up on the tiles, shaking his feathers like dog fur.

Glancing at the heavens, Pinkie strode towards the ten steps leading to the vestibule. The midday sun gave shade only on the seventh – which is where he stopped his hoppings and, as if hatching eggs, nestled.

I’ve never seen a pigeon do that before and I won’t see Pinkie do it again. Next morning, around midday, as I sought shade on my recliner under the Fragipanis, I spotted a pink mess, steeped in blood.

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