Gangsters in the Sky

I'll never forget the time when I witnessed a full scale rumble in downtown Toronto.

I was on foot, crossing the intersection of Davenport and Avenue Rd, heading south down Avenue. This would have been in the mid 2000's, the spring of 2005 I believe… I remember as I was crossing, there was a guy pulled up on Davenport waiting for the light in a muscle car, with the window open and his arm leaning on the window edge. Really these details didn't pick up in my mind until later, due to what happened immediately afterward.

So there I was, crossing the road - when suddenly I felt something smack me in the head, just behind my right ear. Instantly there was a blur of movement over my right shoulder that resolved into the flapping wings of a pigeon flying past me. A pigeon had run into my head! Then the bird careened away from me and flew straight into the driver's door of the guy's car, directly under his resting arm.

Just as the guy was looking over the edge of his door to see what was going on, a second bird sped over my shoulder and swept down towards the car. In a scramble of feathers the pigeon tucked away underneath the car, just as the second bird - a blackbird - arced upwards and over the car.

Me and the driver exchanged a look of amazement. We'd just seen a bird chase! But then I noticed his gaze shift away from me and up over my other shoulder, to the centre of the intersection…

Still crossing the intersection, I slowly turned and looked around. I could hear the sound before I saw it: the cawing and screeching suddenly materializing in my hearing as the scene emerged into my field of vision… Up in the air, about twenty feet above the very centre of the intersection, there was a fierce battle going on between dozens of blackbirds and pigeons.

I reached the sidewalk and stepped up onto the corner in order to fully appreciate the spectacle taking place before my eyes.This was a full on bird rumble in the sky… And the pigeons were losing badly.

I can still see it in my mind's eye. It was total pigeon and blackbird chaos, swirling about between the stoplights above the street. I saw two blackbirds spinning a pigeon around before releasing it straight into the front window of an oncoming bus, almost causing the driver to lose control of his vehicle. Pigeons were being run up along the side of a building above a Dry Cleaner's, violently smashed into the bricks repeatedly by the blackbirds attacking them. At one point some of the pigeons tried to rally a counter attack, but within seconds they were scattered and brutalized beneath an onslaught of blackbird claws and beaks.

Everywhere pigeon bodies were falling from the sky and hitting the ground like bags of wet cement, before being run over by passing cars. On the southeast corner there was a woman with her young daughter, and the poor little girl was crying: "Mommy, the blackbirds are killing the pigeons! They're dying!!!" And all the mother could do was cover the girl's eyes and turn away.

After a few moments it started to die down, leaving that intersection awash in a sea of blood and feathers. I decided to be on my own way, continuing south down Avenue Rd. What else could I do? This was nature taking it's course. And it's always best to stay out of turf wars in the big city.

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Writing and images by Greg McCann, the author of this post and owner of this Steemit Channel. To view more of my work, please visit www.fireawaymarmot.com.