I'm a simple emigrant and I will soon become a grandmother

Back home, I go out onto the balcony, and it’s clean, and to my surprise there’s almost no new bird droppings. I sit, enjoying life, glancing at the table, and a pigeon is looking at me from it! I scooted back to the wall in fear, clearly hoping I wouldn’t notice him. The housing crisis really spares no one. The pigeons thought, what, why is her apartment idle? And they moved in after all. I gently moved the bird aside with a brush, and underneath were two eggs. There’s nothing you can do here now; you can’t just pick up everything from the balcony and throw it away. Honestly, I have only two options. First: replace the eggs with decoys, then the pigeons will sit on the nest, and then they’ll discover that no chick hatched and they’ll fly away. Imagine that? And that’s even a humane method. But for me it sounds too cruel. So I chose the second option: do nothing and wait for the offspring to hatch. Now I have a family routine on the balcony: first the mother dove sits, then the father dove arrives to relieve her. Moreover, when they’re incubating, they do nothing at all, not even drink the water I left for them. Proud, apparently. So far no chicks have hatched, but I’m already stressed. I’m mentally bracing myself that I’ll have to suppress my nausea when the mother dove starts carrying worms. And, like a real grandmother, I worry that the chicks will be healthy and quickly learn to fly. Gotta give the pigeons credit — they chose a great place for their kids. But I told them right away that this is a one-off thing. Then I’ll completely clean the corner, hang ribbons there, a plastic crow, remnants of Halloween decorations, and a Chinese radio, so they won’t come back for round two. I’m still too young to live the grandma life! Read the first episode of the Days of Pigeon Life series here 🕺 #curiosities