Pigeon Lady

I arrived at the train station about 30 minutes before my train was scheduled to leave Paris. I decided to have a seat on one of the benches amongst many other people who were enjoying their afternoon snacks.  Sitting to my right was an average looking 50 year-old woman innocently people watching to pass the time. To my left was another woman, age a bit difficult to determine, who was enjoying a quiche.  THIS was the lady who soon obtained the title of “pigeon lady (PL).”

Now another very important factor of this story is that the Montparnasse station is not fully enclosed, therefore there are creatures that call it home, mainly of the feather-wearing variety. 

Not too long after I had taken residence at my little spot of the bench, it appeared that “PL” had dropped a tiny crumb of her quiche on the ground.  In a nana-second a few sparrows flew in and nibbled at the crumb that she had dropped. A brief minute goes by and I realized that my bench-mate was not accidentally dropping crumbs but purposefully allowing them to fall to feed her lil feathered friends.

I am no expert in birds but I think it is safe to say that most people have experienced feeding them (and that it quickly becomes a group event) or being haggled by them if you have food in a public place (seagulls at the beach).  For some reason “PL” seemed to be under the belief that she could show favoritism when deciding who she wanted to share her afternoon snack with.

The sparrows were quickly joined by pigeons that also wanted to get in on the buffet that she was providing. This was so not okay with “PL.” She quickly made it known that they were not a welcomed guest and was yelling at them to go away and doing some shooing motions to try and get them to leave the area.

At this time I made a decision to leave the bench as she was inviting an entire flock in with her feeding frenzy. I then stood a short distance away so that I could continue to watch her behavior unfold. She continued to try and feed her sparrow friends while feeling a strong need to fend off the pigeons. At this point she was talking loudly (in French) and getting up and walking around the area to get the pigeons to leave.

This continued for probably another 5 minutes and of course all of the others around her were trying to figure out how to react to the situation and slowly put distance between her and themselves.

The following events literally had me laugh aloud. You see, she was not having much success in “bird talking” her enemy pigeons away so she decided to up her arsenal. She took her shoe off and sat on the bench armed and ready to go.

(*** Sorry that the pictures are a bit blurry, I didn't want to draw her attention to me***)

Shoe in hand ready to attack

Shoe is airborne but misses the intended "enemy" pigeon

Deciding her pigeon fighting is over for now and putting her shoe back on

She continued ranting away in French (and I SO wish I could have had a little more skills in picking up what she was saying). She eventually left the bench area and I later saw her walking around the station still talking to herself and maybe also her feathered friends and enemies.

In spite of the fact that I didn’t understand what she was saying, I think it is safe to say that I can identify a mentally unstable person here in France too!!!