The Bird Man Of Fresno

Left: Photo by Mark Crosse of The Fresno Bee.

One man's nuisance is another man's apoptosis:

This is Gaines Carl Brogdon, 83, feeding pigeons next to busy Bullard Avenue as SUVs honk and parry to turn into a Target parking lot. This is the even-keeled Brogdon just chuckling about the time an annoyed worker from a nearby car lot tried to run over the birds with his car.

"He wasn't a bad guy. Just kind of shallow," he said. "And the birds are pretty skillful. Sure, they flew off. Then they circled around and came back to finish their dinner."

Brogdon started feeding the pigeons 25 years ago, back when Bullard was a two-lane road and his front yard didn't face a traffic jam.

..."This flock is one small segment of life on this planet, and life wouldn't be complete without them," Brogdon says. "It all adds up into the cycle of living. The Greeks had a word for it: apoptosis. It means the falling away and replacing of leaves every year. The fact that these birds are here and alive indicates there's hope for the continuation of life. These moments go on."

..."Bird word gets around: Come to Bullard and dine," says Brogdon.

It costs him about $400 a month to buy enough chicken scratch -- cracked corn and cracked wheat -- to spread out the bird buffet.

...But then again, eight months ago, when someone asked Brogdon to take in an abandoned baby pigeon, he said no. It was just too much, with his health problems.

But the bird was left on his front porch in September. Now, the pigeon is named Pete-O. He, or possibly she, lives in the backyard. Brogdon puts Pete-O to bed every night in a box he made cat-proof and hawk-proof with 1/2-inch steel mesh. The pigeon comes when called.

"He follows us around like a puppy," says Marjorie, as the pigeon does just that.

"The little feller grew on me," says Brogdon. "We didn't want him, but now we got him, so what are you going to do? You can't say ,'Go away.' "

He feels the same about his flock in front.

"It started off as a case of feeding them because they were hungry. Now I feed them because I'm glad to see them at this busy intersection. I'm glad to see them alive," he says. "Even with the war and everything else going on in the world, just the fact that the birds are alive. That's something."