The Birdboy of Akabane

(No, it’s not a prison story.)


I went into Shinjuku today to do a little shopping. On the way home I had some time to kill before catching the bus from the train station, so I stopped into McDonald’s for a bit to eat. (Yeah, it’s crap, but it’s tasty crap!) As I was sitting by the window eating my lunch, I saw the weirdest scene across the street. Some kid was feeding the pigeons his leftover fries. In and of itself, that’s not too strange. But the pigeons were quite tame, some of them even eating out of his hand and one flew up for a moment and stood on his head.
And some were even braver than that.

The kid held out his arm like he was Harry Potter waiting for Hedwig to fly over with an owlmail or something.

And damned if a couple pigeons didn’t fly right up and perch on his arm.

Emboldened by his success, he held out his other arm, and was instantly rewarded with two more pigeons.

I finished my lunch and crossed over to chat with him. (Well, not really, since we didn’t speak each other’s language, but you get what I mean, right?) I told him I wanted to get a photo of him with some pigeons on him. He must’ve thought I was weird or something, but he complied as best he could.

Well, as best as the pigeons would allow.

He was out of fries at this point and they weren’t being very cooperative. But there was one bold one left among the bunch:

I showed him the photo after I took it and he seemed to like it. He was still at it when I went over to wait for the bus. I guess he’d built up some rapport with the pigeons (or gone back for more fries), because they were being much more cooperative about perching on his arms after I’d left.

Or maybe the birds are just camera-shy?

O.o