With the old Liberty Memorial Bridge gone, and the last of the debris being cleaned up and removed, hundreds – maybe thousands – of pigeons which called it home are now…well, homeless. Granted, they’re pigeons and could probably find a perch nearly anywhere; however, pigeons have called that bridge home for decades! In fact, the acid in their poop was a significant contributor to the bridge’s deterioration.

Not much goes through the mind of a pigeon. They are, however, attached to the bridge and are still congregating on its wreckage. I’m a bird lover, so I can’t help but feel sorry for these birds whose world got turned upside down last week. They don’t know any better. These birds will continue to cling to the bridge while it lies in pieces just like they did when it spanned the river.

The columns don’t provide much solace for a pigeon, but they’re all that’s left. Soon they’ll be gone, too. Don’t these poor guys just look like they’re wondering what the heck happened to “their” bridge? I suppose that’s the bird lover in me trying to empathize with them.

This sandbar has become a sort of pigeon refugee camp, as has the sandbar just south of the new bridge. They can’t stay here forever; soon the river will freeze, and may even rise above this sandbar. They need some sort of bird “community organizer” to come up with a game plan to relocate!

Progress brings bad along with the good. In this case, it’s the pigeons who got their world rocked, especially when those explosives went off! I’m told the crew attempted to scare the pigeons away before blowing the bridge, but there’s really nothing you can do. Even with the bridge reduced to a few remaining beams strewn about the ground below, you still can’t drive those pigeons away. Naturally there was some collateral damage during the explosions. The birds who survived need to find another place soon, as winter is bearing down on us!