Dorothy Tobias of Westfield tosses bread to herring gulls at the Westfield Shops parking lot as pigeons eat their birdseed in the background. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD – Some birds in the city have reason to give thanks – not just at this time of year – for the support of local residents, for both ongoing assistance and help in special circumstances.
Both pigeons and herring gulls can find a meal at the Westfield Shops when Dorothy Tobias of Westfield visits with both bread for the gulls and bird seed for the pigeons.
Tobias said recently that she visits the birds every day and another woman also goes to the shops daily to feed the birds.
She said that the birds have obvious preferences in their food and the pigeons prefer bird seed which the other woman brings.
“She brought the bird seed. I bring both,” she said.
Tobias said that the gulls like bread and she has found that she can most economically buy the four loaves she brings them daily at a discount supermarket at the Westfield Shops where, she said, “I’m pretty sure it’s 79 cents (per loaf). They have a lot of bargains there.”
She said bread can cost more than four times that price at a convenience store.
“It makes my heart feel good,” she said. “They’re getting tamer. They’re getting used to me.”
Tobias said that she goes to the parking lot at the shops every day that the weather allows but said that when winter weather comes she will not be able to get there every day.
Chris Sadler of Russell stalks a wild duck which somehow became stranded on the side of Franklin Street Wednesday evening. After he pinioned the bird he said that he was going to relocate it to the Westfield River Dike. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
“We’ll have to double up on our bread and seed” when snow is in the forecast, she said.
In an unrelated incident Wednesday evening a duck on Franklin Street got some help from a young Russell man.
At 4:43 p.m. Wednesday a caller from a Franklin Street pizzeria reported that a wild duck was in the roadway near his restaurant but, the responding officer reports, an animal control officer was not available and “therefore the duck was left to dodge traffic on Franklin Street.”
When darkness fell, the staff at an adjacent liquor store were discussing their concerns about the duck when a customer, Chris Sadler of Russell, declared that he would relocate the duck to the dike near the river.
Despite the concerns expressed by the young woman he was with, Sadler chased down the duck, which apparently could not sustain flight, until he was able to pinion the bird and take it to a safer place.
