Pretty Bird, the One-Eyed (Pigeon) Pirate

Meet the best avian pirate throughout the whole Gulf of Mexico!
That's right; it's Pretty Bird!

. . .let me explain. 

So basically, my mother and I swung by our old house yesterday to see if our ex-dad had started painting anything yet. Well- I crept around the house peeking into windows, and my mom stayed in the car, finalizing the details necessary to buy our new house in TN. And right before we left I noticed Pretty Bird, sitting incredibly still and staring at me in the mulch. If I may say so, the chase that resulted (weaving between wet bushes and porch railings) was pretty dramatic.

So then I ended up barefoot, breathless and covered in dew, holding a bird. Which hadn't really been on my bucket list before then? But it suddenly became one of my major accomplishments. 

A "thank you" is owed to my Mother, for being the kind of person who doesn't ask a lot of questions and lets their teenage daughters drive in cars with one-eyed pigeons hanging out in their laps. Along with being the first person to suggest that Pretty Bird might just be a dove and not a Ring-Tailed Pipit, or whatever absurd Southern birds I'd been staring at, trying to determine just what "exotic species" was currently hanging out in a cardboard box in my bathroom.

It should be known that my avian expertise is very, very abysmal. So much so, in fact, that I can't recognize pigons. 

Once we got home, the next few hours consisted of joining Yahoo!Questions, crushing pumpkin seeds, and feeding Pretty Bird water with a knitting needle. 

Since Pretty Bird's right eye was damaged to a questionable extent, I was ridiculously tempted to construct a crude eyepatch, hoist the bird onto my shoulder, steal a ship and start my life-long dream of becoming an infamous pirate. Sadly, I didn't even make it to the first step of my cunning plan, due to the fact that I didn't really have any small black eyepatches hanging around- nor did I know where one would buy an eyepatch for a dove. 

So instead, Pretty Bird just hung out on my shoulder while I played with a foam sword.