I just had the most wonderful experience on my way to the market. When DRJoey left, he left behind two bags of airline pretzels. I told him I'd feed the birds with them. I crushed them in the bags and took them outside about 30 minutes ago. I opened the bags and scattered the pretzels and some crushed dried bread I'd been saving over the street in front of the apartment. Suddenly, dozens of pigeons, perhaps a few doves, and some tiny sparrows flew in and landed at my feet; there was a carpet of birds gathering food in front of me. It was quite beautiful watching them light, fly up and land again; the pigeons were grey, brown, white, and huge next to the little sparrows. Then, the whole flock flew into the air and down 82nd Street toward Amsterdam. A few minutes later they flew back and resumed feeding. Then a few flew up to the church towers and some onto the fire escape in front of my building. I'd never seen such a show in 25 years of living here.
