Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Family, Life and style
Title – Tim Dowling: I’m all for ‘letting the outdoors in’ – but I draw the line at pigeons | Family | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/timdowling
Link – Tim Dowling: I’m all for ‘letting the outdoors in’ – but I draw the line at pigeons | Family | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-13T05:00:07.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/13/tim-dowling-letting-the-outdoors-in-birds
O ur kitchen extension is typical of the area: a single-storey box with a big skylight, a picture window and glass double doors leading to the garden. It’s the sort of arrangement that advocates say brings the outdoors indoors. What they don’t say is: birds will get in.
It’s largely a summer problem, when the double doors are flung open and the sunlight through the glass creates the illusion that kitchen and garden are one. Sometimes a magpie will stroll in off the lawn, glance around in confusion and walk back out, as if he were looking for sporting equipment and mistakenly found himself in housewares. But it’s not usually that straightforward.
My wife posts a picture of a goldfinch sitting on top of the cupboards to the family WhatsApp, captioned “kitchen visitor”.
“Did he get out?” asks the oldest one.
“Yes, I threw a tea towel over him,” my wife writes. “Dad was hiding due to his bird phobia.”
“I do not have a bird phobia,” I say, posting my own picture of the goldfinch to prove I was very much in the room.
It’s true that I draw no pleasure from sharing indoor space with birds, but I’m perfectly capable of making them leave as long as I’m alone and can therefore act without dignity or grace. If my wife is there, I’m happy to let her wield the tea towel.
A few days later I’m sitting in my office shed on a hot afternoon, on the verge of dozing off, when my wife rings.
“Will you help me?” she says. This means she’s back from the shop and wants me to carry the shopping in from the car.
“Yeah, just a sec,” I say, trying to sound interrupted. I stand, cross the lawn and step into the kitchen, where a hysterical pigeon is flying back and forth between the window and the skylight, repeatedly battering itself against the glass of both.
I take a few steps back and think for a minute, my heart racing. Then I open both doors as wide as they will go before crossing the kitchen bent double, a terrible flapping sound just above my head, and shutting the far door tight.
When I open the front door, my wife is already piling the shopping on the step.
“You took your time,” she says.
“Just to warn you,” I say, picking up two bags, “there’s a pigeon the size of a jack russell in the kitchen.”
“And you’ve been waiting for me to come back and deal with it?” she says.
“No,” I say. “I only saw it just now, as I came through.”
“You won’t have liked that,” she says, “with your bird phobia.”
“Neither of us was delighted,” I say, walking back into the house. “Just mind yourself as you …”
I nudge the kitchen door open with my toe and lean in. The room is silent and completely still.
“Huh,” I say.
“No pigeon,” my wife says. “Did you imagine it?”
“He must have got out himself,” I say, “through the door I left open for him. Problem solved.”
“I hope you’re going to help me put all this away,” she says.
Over the next hour my office becomes unbearably hot. I can see my wife in the kitchen, trimming the stems of cut flowers. I drag the hammock into some shade and climb in with my laptop. Almost immediately, my eyelids begin to droop.
I am woken by a chilling scream – a difficult-to-interpret mixture of terror and fury. In the silence that follows I begin to think I may have dreamed the sound, until I hear it again.
My sense of urgency would not be apparent to anyone watching me exit the hammock – I’m holding a laptop, and it turns out the dog is asleep on the grass beneath me. It takes a long time to get to my feet.
In the kitchen I find my wife holding a tablecloth against the window, while something behind it tries to escape. Later I will learn that she lifted a vase off the windowsill to find the pigeon cowering behind it, and they both reacted badly.
“Stop moving!” she yells. Evidently the pigeon had gorged itself on some kind of dark blue berry just prior to entering the kitchen, a meal it was now expelling with propulsive force in every direction.
The dog becomes unhelpfully involved, barking and leaping. Other vases on the sill overturn, spilling water. Everything – windows, woodwork, sofa – is sprayed with blue-black shit.
Eventually my wife manages to fold the bird up into the tablecloth. She carries it to the door, where she tosses it into the air and it takes flight.
“Christ,” she says.
“I told you there was a pigeon,” I say.
