Jeffery Jones had a parakeet as a kid but never considered himself a bird fanatic. Yet when he and his wife settled into an apartment block in New York’s East Village, the pair began noticing the local pigeons. “We began to see how interesting they were – preening, doing funny little dances.” he says.
Around the same time, Jones began volunteering for the Wild Bird Fund, which takes in injured birds in the city. It was far removed from his usual work as a fine art and fashion photographer. “When I joined, they had this resident pigeon, named Ghob after the person who rescued her. She had arrived as a baby: a tiny, yellow, prickly thing, and had refused to leave. We did a trial fostering period with her, but when I took her back to the sanctuary, she was so angry with me she wouldn’t interact with me any more. Then she fell sick and became depressed. My wife and I realised we’d have to adopt her permanently if she was going to survive.”
Now, Ghob lives with the couple. She is affectionate, loves head scratches, and will wait by the front door when she hears her owners approaching. Jones took this photo on his phone as he was leaving to run errands one morning, noticing her slightly furrowed brow, a sign of annoyance that he was going out without her.
“Adopting her was a personal sacrifice; I took a responsibility on because her life meant something to me. I’m not ‘the pigeon guy’ – I just so happen to have a pigeon.”
