It was behaving strangely, which is to say that it was behaving exactly as one would expect a pigeon to act. It twisted its head around nervously, flinching two or three times. Then it stopped for a moment, stunned. It recovered its composure and flicked its neck around – more aggressively this time. It stopped and waited again, woozy. On second thought, the pigeon may have been acting strangely, it was kind of manic.
It pecked at the sidewalk a couple of times. That didn’t seem to satisfy it. It nodded its head down as far as it would go (not very far at all) and reached up with its left leg (its good one – the right foot was missing a toe) and took a quick swipe at its beak. And again – head nod, foot swipe. It planted both legs firmly on the ground and regained its balance. I could see the problem now – a little fluff of feather caught in the bird’s overbite.
It flicked its head back and forth a couple of times and I imagined that it had a crazed look in its blank orange eyes.