Pigeon love means war in Spenard

Posted by adn_jomalley

Posted: November 4, 2009 - 9:12 pm

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The lineup: Pigeons line the roof of Marie Wolfe's photography business in Midtown in late October. (MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

There could be 100 pigeons in the Spenard flock, maybe more. Most days, they perch on the necks of street lights over Benson Boulevard. The birds, like many things in the neighborhood, have been around. They've fought gulls for parking-lot french fries and been attacked by hawks and laid eggs in February. They have missing eyes and tatty feathers and gimpy feet.

Marie Wolfe, an older woman who owns Anchorage Photos, fell in love with the flock a long time ago. For a number of years, she fed the birds daily in the driveway of her shop on Photo Avenue. And over that time, they multiplied. And her roof became a significant pigeon haunt.

But pigeons are not universally appreciated birds. And their calling cards spattered the street, cars and the roofs of the neighbors. And toward the end of this summer, after years of living with the pigeons next door, Volker Hruby had enough.

And now there is all-out pigeon war on the block just down from Benny's Food Wagon.

ENOUGH

Hruby, a carpenter approaching retirement age, has lived next door to Wolfe's business for a good 20 years. For the most part, they've gotten along, he told me last week on the phone. The birds didn't bother him at first, he said.

"But then the pigeons started landing on my roof and pooping," he said.

And so he banged a stick on a piece of plywood to scare them away. But the birds still came.

"I counted 96 pigeons on different light posts," he said.

And so he called the state Department of Fish and Game, and found out feeding pigeons is illegal. He informed Wolfe. But the pigeons stayed. He made a complaint with the state. He was told evidence was needed. He put a video camera in his window and trained it on Wolfe's house.

Pretty soon he caught footage of her spreading seeds on her driveway, he said. He sent the recording to the state. A state wildlife trooper arrived, and while he was there, Wolfe came out and put something on the ground. The pigeons flocked to it. And the trooper wrote Wolfe a ticket for $310.

A few days later, she built a fence to block Hruby's view of her driveway.

And the pigeons kept showing up.

WHAT PIGEONS KNOW

I visited Wolfe one afternoon last week. As I walked through her yard, five pigeons stared at me from her roof. Soon 10 flapped in. Then 30. They turned their heads from one side to the other, blinking their orange eyes.

Wolfe's studio was dim and crowded with old wedding pictures. A gray pigeon peered at me from inside a dog kennel.

By the time she got the ticket, Wolfe told me, she already knew she couldn't feed the pigeons, because she'd talked several times to Fish and Game. She said she stopped in September. She swore the day she got the ticket, she was sweeping her storeroom and a few seeds spilled on the ground. She has an attorney to fight the charge.

Caring hands: Marie Wolfe said she has cared for this bird since summer of 2008. (MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

I couldn't stop staring at the pigeon in the dog kennel. It's name was "Bouncy," she told me. She found it outside with paralyzed legs.

"I massaged her feet for two months, every day," she said.

She opened the door of the kennel and spoke softly: "a goo, guack, guack. a goo guack guack." The bird fluttered out, landed on the roof of the kennel, and made a similar sound back to her, clicking around in circles.

If she wasn't still feeding the pigeons, I asked, how come they were still on her roof?

"Don't ask me that," she said, shrugging. "If you are a pigeon, then you know."

FEEDING THE BIRDS

Rick Sinnott, the area biologist with Fish and Game, told me pigeons compete with native birds for food and carry diseases. That's why feeding is illegal. Sinnott talked to Wolfe on the phone more than once in the fall and asked her to stop. But she didn't, he said.

A wildlife trooper visited the house after hearing from Sinnott, according to Megan Peters, Alaska State Trooper spokeswoman. The officer was certain Wolfe spread bird seed on purpose, she said. He even took a sample for evidence.

If Wolfe is caught again, Sinnott said, she could be charged with a misdemeanor.

FOUL PLAY

It began with one pigeon that appeared in Wolfe's flower pot in 2003, she told me. She tossed it a few seeds. And then came another, and another. Soon she felt responsible for the flock. When they were overhead, she said, she felt protected.

"I'd walk to get the mail and go "a goo guack, guack" and they'd come on my hands and my arms," she told me.

Other people might feed them, too, she said. While I was there, I saw the flock feast on a discarded piece of pizza thrown from a car.

Lately she's been finding them dead, she said. Twenty-one over the last few months, she said. Once she found pigeon blood splattered on her old Mercedes, she said. It could have been a hawk, but she suspected foul play.

Hruby denies it.

WAR

There's no question things have become ugly on Photo Avenue.

Hruby has Wolfe under near-constant surveillance. She called the city about a water problem in his yard. He says she's still feeding the birds. She suspects he might know something about the mysterious deaths.

"I just want her to stop feeding the pigeons," Hruby told me. "That is all I want."

"I just wish to God I would be left alone," Wolfe told me. "That is all I want."

And above them, the Spenard flock still circles and flutters over the traffic on Benson Boulevard.

Is Wolfe still feeding the birds? Is Hruby offing them? I can't tell.

Only the pigeons know the truth.

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