Birds often symbolize peace, love or freedom. Man has always marvelled at birds. In some way, we worship them. How seemingly free they fly, how they navigate and how they sing (or so we call their language) remains a marvel, often a mystery and almost always a thing of beauty. Birds always find their way home. For we Canadians, the Canada Goose symbolizes the ultimate wisdom of calling Canada home: winter in Florida and summer in Canada’s lakes, streams, ponds and rivers.
For Canadians, the Canada Goose is the sign of hope. Watching their flowing V formation flight back to this winter-barren land gives us a short-lived sensation of optimism. Of course, Canadians can be a tad silly. Because immediately following this foolish optimism are swarms of black flies. These little insects are nothing than flying jaws that can smell your blood a mile away and whose purpose in life I believe is nothing more than to ingest as much meat and blood to in turn, provide food for swallows in breeding season when breeding creatures are in their greatest need of extra protein. The airborne food chain is something to behold.
Birds are delicate and complicated, as is peace or love or freedom.
Eagles soar. Hummingbirds move with such speed and hover so quickly, they still defy any man-man flying machines.
The dove, of course, symbolizes peace and as Leonard Cohen so prophetically sings, “…the holy dove, she will be cut again…” (Anthem)…“the dove is never free..”
Birds are subject of many songs of love, hope and beauty.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly.”
It’s all very poetic and beautiful.
That is, until we get to chickens and pigeons.
What can symbolize the pathos of life more than a bird that cannot fly? Love on a skewer and spiced right, a delightful meal. Eaten and forgotten.
No one has a pet chicken.
Pigeons are also pathetic. They are a nuisance. They shit on our artwork and our monuments. They have no shame. Their only saving grace may be that they could quite possibly have been the inspiration for Michael Jackson’s famous moon walk dance only he did it to music and much quicker and with style.
Where is the pigeon of peace? The pigeon of freedom? The pigeon of love? And what is their role? While many of us may enjoy a delightful chicken dish served with wild rice and a crisp Chardonnay, there are few who serve up pigeons with such affinity. Pigeons are a meal of need, not choice. Pigeons are the bottom-feeders of the sky.
But they are a meal of choice for winged friends.
Owls.
Owls love these birds. Is it not a paradox that one of the most unintelligent and flightless birds is the meal of choice for the bird that represents not peace, not love, nor freedom but wisdom?
Perhaps the most tragic of birds is the morning dove. If (or rather when) they lose their mate, they never mate again. They perch alone. They peck at the ground alone. And they sleep alone.
How ironic the dove often best symbolizes love. Of course, the obvious question is how this particular dove came to be alone? What happened to its mate?
Quite possibly the bird of wisdom eats more than pigeons.
Three Years on Mars 