Naturalist Harold Ogle has photographed the pigeons of Market Square every Tuesday since 1987. According to his records, they are the same 40 birds.
“Not the same kind of pigeon,” Ogle clarified. “The same pigeons.”
Ogle, 74, began his catalog in September 1987, when he first noted a bird he designated No. 12, identifiable by a missing left toe, begging outside Watson’s department store. No. 12 was photographed again last Tuesday, outside the same door, which is now a restaurant. “He’s worked that corner his whole life,” Ogle said. “You have to respect that.”
The average city pigeon lives about six years. Ogle’s flock has outlived four downtown revitalization plans, the original Sundown in the City, and nearly every restaurant on the square. In 39 years he has recorded no hatchings and no deaths, and the count has never moved off 40. “They don’t hatch and they don’t die,” he wrote in his 1994 field journal. “They just attend.”
Ogle’s leading theory involves the JFG plant, whose roasting fumes drifted over downtown for decades. “Those birds breathed that aroma every morning for thirty years,” he said. “Something in it preserved them. It preserved half the men I know, too.” The plant stopped roasting downtown years ago. The pigeons have not acknowledged this.
The University of Tennessee’s ornithology faculty declined to review the findings, citing workload. JFG’s current owners had no comment.
No. 12 was back at his corner Tuesday.