The day a pigeon decided to ride my tower crane cab in Chicago

So I'm up about 250 feet on a tower crane near the river, just starting my shift. I open the cab door to get some air, and before I can even sit down, this big, fat pigeon just flies right in and lands on my control console. I'm not kidding, it just stood there, cooing and looking at me like it was checking my pre-op list. I tried to gently shoo it out, but it just hopped over to the seat and wouldn't leave. My foreman on the radio is asking why I'm not moving, and I had to say, 'Yeah, I've got a bird in the cab.' He thought I was joking. I ended up having to use my lunch bag as a sort of shield to guide it back to the door, which took a good ten minutes of very careful moves. Has anyone else had an animal decide to join them for a lift?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_jana2mo ago

That's a serious safety thing vera_johnson9 is right about. A bird hitting a lever could cause a real problem. It's lucky it was just a chill pigeon and not something more jumpy. You handled it well with the lunch bag trick. That's a story you'll tell forever.

nancyn692mo ago

My uncle was a lineman in Montana. He told me a story about a hawk that landed on the crossarm next to him, maybe 80 feet up, and just watched him work for a solid hour. It felt like a safety inspection from the sky. He said he was extra careful tightening every bolt.

vera_johnson92mo ago

250 feet up and it just flies in... that's wild. I can't get over the pigeon looking at you like it was checking your work. What if it had hit a lever or something while you were trying to shoo it out?

holly_reed5529d ago

That pigeon probably thought it was a supervisor or something, right? @the_jana is spot on about the safety thing too. Imagine if that bird had pecked at a wire or knocked a tool off the platform. You'd be scrambling to catch it while trying not to look down. Lucky it was just a curious bird and not a spooked hawk. Birds have zero concept of what a lever does, but they sure have a talent for getting in the way.