pigeons

Some things never change - like people feeding pigeons by the Park Street T stop. But they rarely smile these days, like this lady did sometime between 1910 and 1920.

From the Library of Congress's prints and photos collection. More info and larger version.

Wicked Local Cambridge reports some Woburn guy was arrested on animal-cruelty charges when he was spotted stuffing a pigeon into plastic bags in Inman Square. No word on his plans for the oven-stuffer roasters birds.

Squab to go:

... [Reed Sturtevant] was walking to lunch in the square yesterday with another former Lotus legend, Bob Frankston, when an unusual sight stopped them in their tracks. As Sturtevant described it: "a hawk eating a pigeon in the middle of the sidewalk while about a dozen people stood around and watched. Bob had his camera and took this pic."

Boston Mag's Joe Keohane gets City Councilor John Tobin to commit to looking at ways to shrink the city's pigeon population, following the news that pigeon poop might have helped cause the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

But it turns out that while Tobin dislikes pigeons, what really terrifies him are squirrels:

... I hope there's a contraceptive for squirrels too, something to, you know, cover their nuts. Squirrels scare the crap out of me.

Memo to Councilor Tobin: The answer to that one, at least in the Westie end of your district, is simple - coyotes.