Diary of a Pigeon Watcher

288 pp. "For most urban dwellers pigeons are the city's scavengers. Ubiquitous. Dirty. Lowly. For Doris Schwerin, an accomplished composer of theater music and a playwrights, they were to open a rich new world. While recovering from the trauma of a serious illness, she would sit by the window of her New York City apartment and observe their daily drama. From the dead of winter through the joy of spring, she kept a diary of their matings, births, flights, love affairs, wars--their fight for life on a stone ledge. Her observations triggered her own journey back into real and emotional time, the world of the pigeon becoming a springboard for reflections about her own origins and nest."