A WING AND A PRAYER

2007 October 28
by narmer

A Wing and a Prayer

A Wing and a Prayer

In a city where they are often referred to as rats with wings, one man’s passion for the pesky pests known as pigeons results in the type of intrigue that makes great mystery novels:

WHEN Eduardo Urbina’s pet pigeon disappeared from his apartment in Spanish Harlem three summers ago, he suspected something nefarious.

Mr. Urbina, a street vendor who sells hats and watches along Third Avenue in the East 80s, recalled having seen a burly man with dreadlocks scooping live pigeons off Third Avenue with a fishing net, then depositing them into the back of his van. Mr. Urbina, who knows that pigeons are not in the habit of wandering off on their own, says he believed that the man with the dreadlocks had taken his bird.

After Mr. Urbina’s pigeon vanished, he set up his own sting operation at Third Avenue and 103rd Street, near his apartment. A bakery on the corner discarded large bags of old bread that attract flocks of birds, and Mr. Urbina suspected that the birds would in turn attract the netter. Every morning for two months, he waited on the corner from 6 until after 7, his camera in hand.

Read the whole story: NYTIMES

from → East Harlem, Human Interest, Pet Care