The chat is quiet. Someone posted a meme half an hour ago, and nobody replied. A regular Tuesday.
Then this:
🕊 Pigeon Gena strolled onto the windowsill like he owns the place. Coo.
There are two buttons under the message. A minute later, the chat comes alive:
📣 Vasya: stomp! The pigeon is not impressed
📣 Masha: BURUBURUBRU! The pigeon gave her a pitying look
📣 Dima: BANG with a saucepan! The pigeon lost it and bailed
This is Дерзкая голубятня, roughly “the Cheeky Dovecote”. It is a Telegram bot that every now and then releases a pigeon into a group chat and watches what you do about it.
One thing up front: the dovecote only speaks Russian. As any self-respecting yard pigeon would.
Who drops by
It’s a different pigeon every time: Gena, Tolik, Valera, Semyonych, Palych, Uncle Kolya. Sometimes Batya, the Old Man himself. They all wear flat caps, many wear gold chains, and they are all here on business. What business, they won’t say.
The pigeon lands on the ledge, adjusts his cap, and looks at you. He’s not leaving on his own. Not for the next 15 minutes, at least.
What to do about him
There are two options, and everyone gets one try at each.
💦 Spit. A hit is worth a point in the chat’s rating. Whoever hits first takes the Golden Spit and holds it until somebody snatches the trophy away.
📣 Shoo. Stomp, shout, slap the windowsill with a slipper. The first attempt rarely works. But every attempt after that on the same pigeon is more likely to succeed. One person can’t budge him. It takes the whole yard.
When the pigeon leaves, the dovecote sums it up: how many times he got hit and who scared him off. Or that he simply went off about his business.
The pigeon knows more than he lets on
Once a day, the dovecote posts a prediction. Pigeons have seen things, so their forecasts are accurate:
Better not argue with the crows today.
There’s money this week. The pigeon didn’t say whose.
The pigeon advises you to go outside. The pigeon doesn’t know any other advice.
There are achievements too. Sniper is for hits on five arrivals in a row, Early Bird for hitting first five times. Scare off five pigeons and you become the Pigeon Menace. The neighbourhood respects that title.
Cheeky, but well brought up
Our pigeons have a code. They visit no more than three times a week and only during the day; at night they keep quiet. They don’t ping anyone. They don’t read your messages; buttons and commands are all they need. The dovecote keeps a separate rating for every chat.
They can stir up the chat. Annoying it is not part of the plan.
Relax, we love pigeons
It is a respectable bird: it carried the mail long before anyone dreamed of Telegram. Дерзкая голубятня is a joke about cartoon lads in flat caps. Spitting here is a button. No real pigeons were harmed. If you meet a live one, offer it some seeds.
If your chat is suspiciously quiet
Gena knows. The dovecote lives at @golubinskity_bot: add it to a chat, an admin types /pigeon setup, and the pigeons take it from there.
The dovecote’s lines live in an open repository. If you know another way to shoo a pigeon, send it over.