On Sunday we went on a walk through several parks, but at our start point, before we even got to any parks, we had another interesting ornithological encounter. In amongst the usual tourist crowds I noticed a big brown bird of prey swooping onto a perching spot in one corner. The hawk then flew past my head back to his owner, a guy standing by Nelson’s column. I hadn’t noticed until then, but there were no pigeons. Not a single one!

I must have missed the news, that the authorities have deployed this hawk as a pest control technique. Awesome. It’s amazing how effective it seems to be. We saw one or two pigeons flying very high up, and veering away from the square. Apart from that, nothing.

I notice the idea has its critics, and the enevitable save the pigeons campaign group. They call it “bloodsport”. I didn’t see any blood, because there were no pigeons! They’re obviously all scared shitless of it. Interestingly that website also claims that pigeons do not pose a disease problem. I think they’re probably right about that. How many people d’you hear about catching diseases from pigeons? But I’m not a fan of pigeons. There’s too many of them. They crap everywhere, and they’re just boring.

Hawks on the other hand…. kick ass!