On Tuesday, we were suprised to find a whole flock of pigeons in our front yard, scattered about. It was a little strange to see so many birds flying around and seeming to hang out but we went with it.
As we were outside with them, we discovered that they didn’t really fly away when you went close to them. So of course, the kids went closer and closer and realized that they could be picked up!
After this, we thought that maybe they were around from in town. There are some birds around there that are around people quite a bit in a public park. Perhaps they flew out of the park one day for a change up???
On Wednesday, a neighbor came by to catch us up on what really happened. Some helpful background/spoiler alert: it isn’t unusual for Buddhists to release animals that were previously captive as a good deed; adding to their eternal merit. Appearently, a monk had released these pigeons, after buying them at a market or petstore, into our village. This neighbor was trying to gather them up and move them to a better place as they were lazing about on the road and not flying out of the way of moving vehicles. We will see how these sitting ducks last the week. The village stray dog has already gotten to three of them.