The pigeon is the busker of the animal kingdom. Nobody asked for it. Nobody hired it. Nobody auditioned it. The pigeon just showed up and refused to leave. The pigeon has been in New York longer than any of us. The pigeon was here before the skyscrapers. The pigeon was here before the subway. The pigeon was here before the Dutch. The pigeon does not care about your rent or your job or your opinion of pigeons. The pigeon has a gig and the gig is being a pigeon and the pigeon has never missed a show.

Every park bench in New York belongs to the pigeons. You think you are sitting on a bench. You are sitting on a pigeon's stage. The pigeon walks toward you not because it wants your sandwich. The pigeon walks toward you because the pigeon is performing and you are the audience. The pigeon struts. The pigeon bobs its head. The pigeon has more stage presence than half the bands I played with in the seventies. The pigeon does not need a soundcheck. The pigeon does not need a set list. The pigeon works the crowd every single day and never takes a day off.

I used to play guitar in Washington Square Park and the pigeons would gather. Not because they liked the music. Pigeons do not care about music. The pigeons gathered because where there are people there are crumbs and where there are crumbs there are pigeons. But I liked to think they were listening. I liked to think there was one pigeon in the back who understood what I was doing. A pigeon who had heard every guitar player in that park for fifty years and knew the difference between someone who was playing for money and someone who was playing because they had to.

People hate the pigeon. People call the pigeon a rat with wings. People call the pigeon dirty. People call the pigeon a nuisance. People say the same thing about buskers. The pigeon and the busker are the same animal. Both show up uninvited. Both refuse to leave. Both survive on whatever the city throws at them. Both are the first thing the tourists complain about and the last thing they would actually want to disappear. A city without pigeons is a city without a pulse. A city without buskers is a city without a song.

The pigeon does not migrate. That is the thing nobody talks about. Every other bird leaves when it gets hard. The sparrow leaves. The robin leaves. The pigeon stays. The pigeon stays through the winter. The pigeon stays through the garbage strike. The pigeon stays through the construction. The pigeon is the most loyal New Yorker who ever lived and the pigeon does not even have an apartment. The pigeon sleeps on a ledge and wakes up and does it again. That is not a rat with wings. That is a New Yorker.