Pigeons: aka Rats of the Sky

Pigeons have to be one of the most annoying creatures of all time.  Not only are they everywhere, pooping and dirtying up the city, I'm pretty sure they can be classified as the rats of the sky.  

They have always been a minor annoyance to me, but more recently, they have become a nuisance of a whole different level.  This has happened over the course of two incidences.

The first, I am sitting on a park bench off of 9th avenue, near between 56th and 57th street.  I'm dodging my duties as a flier distributor to have a snack and take in a little sunshine.  Per usual, there's a homeless man sleeping to one corner of the park, and a small flock of pigeons wandering around looking for some obnoxious tourist to feed them.  

However, in the midst of my much needed relaxation and rest to my feet, the pigeons start acting a little nutsy.  They are getting anxious and cooing more loudly, generally exhibiting signs of agitation.  This one, especially agressive pigeon keeps getting closer and closer to me, which is really freaking me out since there is no one to witness it's weird behavior.  First it hops up on the bench next to me, and after I shoo it away gets right up next to my feet.  Then it starts hopping onto my Ugg boots like it is trying to roost on my feet.  Needless to say, I find this very distressing, and instantly shake my feet to get it off as soon as it starts to settle in.  This happens three to four times, and in typical New Yorker, not phased by much, style I continue to sit on the bench despite the pigeon's weird activity.  I think it's a little strange, but I'm not going to let it deter me from my goal.  

Then, out of nowhere, a gigantic hawk swoops out of the sky and directly onto one of the pigeons in the middle of the flock, a mere four feet from where I'm sitting.  It clutches one unlucky bird in it's death talons, and turns to look at me before taking off again with the whole dead pigeon in its claws.  Weird, huh?

Now I've recently moved into a new apartment and feel extremely blessed not to have windows overlooking the street because of the loud street noise that tends to wake you up in the middle of the night.  Yet, the scourge of the skies has been disrupting my peaceful nights, by congregating in alleyway onto which my window currently opens.  

At any given time, there are one to two pigeons sitting on my windowsill scratching around and cooing, constantly.  I would just like to know why no one has invented a pigeon zapping device.