Lower Wombley Pigeons Open Night School For Confused Streetlights
Residents say the city’s pigeons are teaching streetlights to blink in Morse code, despite neither species having exams on the calendar.
LOWER WOMBLEY, A flock of pigeons has opened an evening school for confused streetlights. Lessons cover blinking, standing up straight and pretending nobody is watching. Classes began Tuesday beneath a statue of a boot, after several lamps admitted they could no longer remember which way was down.
Professor Niblet Crumb runs the programme. He is a pigeon, holds the invented title of Senior Lecturer in Urban Illumination, and wears a small silver bell on one foot. Crumb said the birds had observed streetlights glowing “with the nervous energy of people who have misplaced a very large document.”
The timetable starts with Introduction to Darkness. Then comes Practical Puddle Reflection, followed by Advanced Flickering for Beginners. Pupils must bring one feather, a notebook made of moonlight, and an object suitable for quietly judging from a rooftop.
“It was less a lighting arrangement than a group chat with no administrator.”
Results have been uneven. A bollard-shaped light failed its first blinking exercise after becoming absorbed by a moth drawn in charcoal on the blackboard. Another lamp spent forty minutes arguing that illumination was a state of mind, then switched itself off.
The pigeons eventually had to formalise things. Mavis Quill, the school’s Head of Corridor Weather, said the town’s streetlights had begun gathering in “a loose circle of mutual uncertainty” around the bus shelter. “They were all shining at once,” she said. “It was less a lighting arrangement than a group chat with no administrator.”
A man standing nearby reported seeing students practise emergency dimming while two pigeons marked homework with crumbs. The strongest lamp, he said, had learned to send “please stop leaning on me” in Morse code. It has so far directed the message at a recycling bin.
The town hall’s Office of Minor Noises has declined to inspect the school. An anonymous official explained that its inspectors could not tell the difference between a pigeon delivering a lecture and a sandwich falling from a height. Classes will continue until the lamps graduate, molt, or develop a legally recognised interest in astronomy, whichever happens first.