Submitted by Susan Richmond

We have a light well between our house and the next, a not uncommon state of affairs in San Francisco.  It's accessible only by crawling out the window above a toilet, so it's pretty small and narrow, mostly dark. 

At first, we saw the proud yet watchful parents, trying to get a look at what or whoever is hanging out the bathroom window just above them, disturbing their privacy with bursts of light.

Then the nest with eggs, so small and pristine. 

Then the yellow blobs.  Well, the wee, bedraggled things didn't looked like they'd survived.  They were distressing to look at, and it seemed somehow insensitive to be shooting their demise.  Who wants to put pictures of dead bird babies in one's family album, you know? -- 

Then a look at the fuzzy brownish-grey ones a couple of days later, when all the peerers in the house decided they were, in fact, alive.

Next two pigeon chicks, @ one month old, cower in a corner.  Well, it's quite cold, and mostly cloudy -- in the 50's and 60's F., so they huddle and, apparently, wait.  My son says he hears the parents return every day, though I no longer see or hear them, so they're not here much of the day and don't converse when they are.

Finally, the present big ones, appearing to be developing somewhat lazy, even resentful personality traits, huddling in their corner.  Considering that San Francisco seems to be having an extraordinary heat wave, this lack of initiative seems a waste of the most blissful days of the year in our ordinarily foggy, chilly summer climate.  I may be reading more into their body language and stolid faces than is really there.  Facts not in evidence, as my husband might say.  

We will stop feeding them in the hopes they will get hungry enough to venture out on their own.

Oh happy day!  Due to your coaching of us, and the parents' coaching of them, they have flown! --  At least up to the pipes on the top floor.  Whether they've gone all the way and are just back for a breather, I can't say.   I don't think they're the parents, because I don't see the iridescence on the chest of the one opposite, or the cagey eye.  Besides, the corner dwellers aren't on the ground floor any more.  Looks like they made it through the adolescent doldrums and are finding themselves, just as you assured me they could and would.

So ends our drama of serving as the love nest of a lovely couple.  It will be fascinating to see if they liked it enough to come back when they're ready for other additions to the family.