So was it an omen – or just a really weird coincidence?
Last Sunday a young boy and girl helped Pope Francis release two white doves from a Vatican balcony ~
Meant as a symbolic gesture of peace, the captivating scene was rudely interrupted by two non-peaceful – apparently hungry – birds; a hooded crow, and a yellow-legged gull ~
[Predictably, animal rights groups flew into a hissy fit; in their perfect world all creatures would be vegetarian.]
National Geographic offered a rationale for the unusual occurrence ~ Why Birds Attacked the Peace Doves in Rome ~ explaining that all-white animals are freaks of nature. Those like the pair released at the Vatican are specially bred to be white, and…
There’s a reason that albino birds (and other animals born without any color pigment) generally don’t live long in the wild: They’re easily seen, they can’t hide, and predators single them out for attack.
Sounds about right. But are crows and gulls “predators?”
Oh sure, they can be aggressive. One time in Florida we saw a sea gull swoop down and snatch a sandwich right out of some unsuspecting tourist’s hand (The look on the guy’s face was priceless 😀 ). And crows have been known to gang up on owls to drive them out of their territory. But for two different species of scavengers (they eat what they can find, and are partial to road-kill) to suddenly double-team and attack the doves in what almost seemed like a coordinated effort – while tens of thousands of people just happened to be watching?
Hmmm…
Happily, the story ends well for the doves. They lost a few feathers, but by all accounts, they survived to fly another day.
The crow and the gull however did succeed in banishing them from the Vatican.
An ominous sign? By itself, maybe not.
But what about this?
Maybe this?
This?
Or this?
Considered along with much darker events happening around the world today, don’t be too quick to laugh it off.
PHOTO CREDIT: (ALL THREE IMAGES) GREGORIO BORGIA, AP
