Over the last few weeks, staff and students at Edinburgh College have come to be acquainted with ‘Deid Pigeon’, who has been ‘hangin out in Granton Campus’ for several weeks now.

This comes as a tragic loss to the pigeon community, who had assumed his absence at the recent Pigeon meet up was down to him hooking up with a seagull down in Musselburgh.

However it wasn’t long till the tragic reality got coo-cooed to us:

“A DEAD pigeon stuck in a net above Edinburgh College has been getting bosses in a flap – after starting up a Twitter account.

The unfortunate bird became caught up in netting above the main communal area of the College’s Granton campus a few weeks ago, and sadly died.

It is stuck in an area of netting too high for it to be easily removed – and taking the entire net down is a job that comes with a whopping price tag of £7500.

As a result, the bird body was left in place while bosses tried to come up with a cheaper alternative, leading to complaints from students and staff which prompted one onlooker to start up a twitter account.

The EdCol’s Deid Pigeon – or @DeidPigeon – has since been entertaining followers with a series of tongue-in-beak tweets, updating students on its status and attracting more than a few fans.

Student Nathan Curran who tweeted: “RIP wee man. I sit in my sociology class every day and pray for you”, to which the bird, which has been online since Monday, cooed back: “I’ve seen you watching! In fairness, you should probably pay more attention to the lecturer than me.”

The parody account also tweeted an internal message, from Craig Wilson, Granton’s vice principal and campus director, in which he revealed the cost of removal.

It said: “I appreciate that the dead pigeon is causing quite a bit of concern, but please be assured that we are doing everything we can to rectify this.

“Removal of the pigeon will involve removing all of the netting for which we have received two separate quotes, both for £7500. We are therefore actively working to find a lower cost solution.”

EdCol’s Deid Pigeon revealed that a cheaper option might be getting students with poles to knock him down, using hair dryers to blow him off the net, and getting joinery students up on the roof with nail guns to “shoot me down”.

Thankfully however, staff have finally hit upon a less bird-brained scheme – a long-reach cutting tool.

A college spokesman said: “We’ve tried several times to remove it by pushing it to the sides of the netting with poles, but it’s trapped in the netting so it won’t budge.

“Our staff now have a long-reach cutting tool and will be attempting to cut it down this weekend. Hopefully we can retrieve the pigeon and give it a more dignified ending.”

This is not the first time dead pigeons have caused a flap in Edinburgh. In March last year dozens of dead pigeons were left to rot under North Bridge after becoming trapped in a net designed to stop them roosting.” - http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/education/dead-college-pigeon-tweets-from-netting-trap-1-3357911

We, the pigeon federation, and affiliated to the National Union of Flying Hings, ask that Edinburgh College give our beloved Pigeon brother the rightful end of life commemoration (and shoe box) that he deserves. We also ask that the shoebox has some tissues for comfort, and some Trill, just in case, ken.

Signed,

 

Pigeon Brotherhood