" People didn't always hate pigeons in the city—in fact, one could look up and catch glimpses of homing-pigeon lofts atop a lot of the lower buildings, owners doting on the dear little things, circling on their wings high above the rooftops. But people have come to make a hobby of detesting the birds, I think, because they've come to see that pigeons are much like people: dirty and murmuring, greedy and abundant, flocking in a corpus of such shit and weight that one fears they may permanently deface or crush whatever they congregate on. "

― Kathleen Rooney , Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk