I can only agree with Toussaint Douglass that we should do more pigeon-watching (The hill I will die on: Pigeons are working-class heroes and deserve some respect, 29 December). Ever since Covid, I have been entertained by the pair of wood pigeons that make their home on the windowsill of my flat.
During lockdown, when the outside world was scary and remote, these wood pigeons cheerfully slapped together a nest and raised two healthy chicks. Watching them nurture their offspring from eggs to hatchlings, then watching these offspring take their first tentative test flights, was truly heartwarming. Since then, they have reared several broods of chicks to adulthood on this same windowsill.
I wondered if it might be the same two pigeons who kept returning to lay eggs several times a year. Seemingly, wood pigeons mate for life (though they will find a new partner if one of them dies). They are also the only birds that can suck up water without tilting their heads back. They sing their distinctive husky “coo-coo” song with their beaks closed. And although their nests are notoriously slapdash, they make very good parents – both parents take turns sitting on eggs and feeding the chicks. I don’t know if they’re working class – but they’re certainly heroes.
Ross McQueen
Brussels, Belgium
• Hooray for pigeons! Hooray for Toussaint Douglass, who would die on a hill for them. I first grew to respect them as they roosted outside my bedsit window in Lewisham. They are the nature that is always there when other conditions of life can be restricted or diminished.
Nowadays I make soft sculptures of pigeons, which sell very well, thank you very much, and it is possible that the descendants of Mary of Exeter, the second world war hero pigeon mentioned by Douglass, visit me in my Devon garden.
Teresa Rodrigues
Sandford, Devon
