Investigative Report: Lack of Pigeons

It began as a mere observation and turned into an extensive and thorough analysis. When walking to Riverbank park I found something to be missing. It was something I rarely take notice of, but due to the lack-there-of of this certain something it became quite apparent to me. What it was that I noticed was that there were no pigeons to be found - at least not very many.

Now, Down town, even midtown, if I may say so, there is a considerable amount more pigeons then I have found up here in Harlem (Strange? yes, I may say so). I encountered one on my walk and maybe two or three up above in the sky, but that is all. What can account for this lack on pigeons? What is the factor in this mysterious equation, which charts us on a path to pigeonlessness? It is not apparent at first glance, however, a closer investigation reveals quite a bit.

I needed not go to the library (being the bourgeois institution that it is) to solve the ponderies [not a real word*] of my mind. All that I needed was my trusty intuition and my preordained knowledge of birds. Once you hear my reasonings you will clearly understand.

It is quite simple really. Birds spend a considerable amount of time in the sky. The high altitude creates pressure on the bird's head causing the saturation of oxyhemoglobin to drop. As a result of this the bird experiences slight hypoxia, which subsequently produces the cholinergic neurons in the parabrachial and pedunculopontine nuclei of the tegmentum to temporarily degrade. Because it is only slight, there are no long term effects of this process and the cholinergic neurons eventually become restored. The short term effects are various forms of hallucination, which enhance the birds ability to find food at far distances. But, because of the deteriorating effects on the bird's brain, the bird must eventually come down from the sky and replenish its neural formation. Birds then try and seek the lowest point of altitude and the closets point to sea level. Depending on how long the bird was in flight, the bird will search for differing surface heights.

This can then explain why there are fewer birds "up"town then there are "down"town. Harlem is of a higher altitude then the lower parts of Manhattan and thus less birds are willing to rest their weary wings upon the brow of such urban highlands.

This all makes sense now. I hope its cleared up some inquiries you may have had as well.