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| Baby Pigeons Outside Gary Null's Anti Aging Center |
My friend and fellow writer Harry Bentivegna Lichtenstein manages Gary Null's Upper East Side Anti Aging Center at 307 East 92nd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues near Zebu Grill. One day at work he discovered that two pigeons had transformed one of the window boxes outside the center into their nest and were now taking turns sitting on a pair of eggs. Here are the baby pigeons several weeks later after hatching. When the baby pigeons first hatched they had all yellow down-like feathers and looked like little Easter chicks. These yellow feathers were eventually replaced by the black, white and grey feathers you see pictured here. If you look carefully you will still see some of the yellow down remaining on their heads and necks.
We suspect that they are the first offspring of the parent birds as there were no brother or sister pigeons observed helping at the nest. The babies are now flying. Harry reported that their parents stopped feeding them, but stayed in the visible vicinity of the nest for several days, to get the babies to fly. The baby birds would perch on the window box and flap their wings but seemed to be afraid to fly. Eventually, after several days, to get to their parents and be fed, they took to the air for their first flight to their waiting parents.
After coaxing the little baby birds to fly for food, once again the parents stopped feeding the babies after just a few days and now the babies are pecking for food on their own. Harry reports that until the babies adjusted to feeding themselves they were chasing their parents and fiercely flapping their wings trying to latch on to their parents beaks to get food.
The members of Gary Null's support group who were meeting at the center twice a month had become fascinated by the little pigeons and their progress often coming early to peak through the blinds at the window box. And of course everyone asks Harry for updates. The group just completed their last session and in time to see the babies flying. Now it's time for everyone, human and pigeon, to take off and fly -- and eat -- solo. Just like the little pigeons we're all afraid to try something new and we need to take that first leap of faith to survive.
