Catalan Terrorist Pigeons in Placa Catalunya

For some reason, every iconic picture of Europe I saw in travel brochures involved some low angle shot of a pigeon in a square or plaza with the background of some European travel sight. Why re-invent, when you can copy the same shots? One really good reason … these pictures don’t tell you about the inherent dangers of Plaza/Square/Placa/Zocalo pigeon photography.

In Placa Catalunya, the Pigeons are rather peculiar, in that they have been trained by tourists and have morphed into mutant Pigeon food collection terrorists. One minute the Pigeons are calmly walking on the ground in a huge swarm. No problem? Just situate yourself on the ground or low to the ground and just wait for your shot.

Not really. The pigeons have been trained to move en masse to the sight of any object being thrown, hence the pigeons move in a swarm from one side of the Placa to the other and if you’re in the middle of the Placa, it can be actually terrifying … not that I was terrified, but I was a little concerned that one of the Pigeons would fly right into my head. I even flipped open my umbrella, when I was caught in the swarm and a Pigeon flew into my umbrella. Thankfully to report …  my umbrella was unharmed.

Notice the other tourists ducking for cover and I only realized that the Pigeons swarm was an efficient, aerial Pigeon fecal delivery system, as one of the tourists in the Placa was hit. She wasn’t mortally wounded, but she didn’t had traces of a spread shotgun attack. However as quickly as the Pigeons moved, they went to other side of the Placa because of this guy by the food stand tossing bread.

Thankfully, the Pigeons don’t control the entire Placa, at the fountains, the Pigeons have ceded control to the humans.

And at night, it is a completely Pigeon free zone!