“It’s going to rain in the afternoon today. So I suppose I’ll go to work using the station and….whoa, no way.”

Japanese Twitter user @WarriorDeadHead his thoughts for the morning, as he was walking over to his nearby train station, recently, along with a photo of what froze him in his tracks when he realized what had become of his bike that he had left at the station for 2 weeks.

Inside the bicycle basket, there was a bird that had taken up home along with a nest, looking back at him as if to say “It’s my home here. Any problem?”

Although he stared at the bird, an Oriental turtle dove, for a while, the bird didn’t seem to be bothered and wouldn’t move. It was when he started thinking he may have to commute with the pigeon inside the basket, the pigeon must have read his mind or simply changed its mind about keeping the nest, and it apparently took off.

@WarriorDeadHead found out that Oriental turtle doves have a habit of recycling nests. So, he looked for an old, abandoned bicycle that clearly was never going to be used (many leave bicycles at train stations in Japan, particularly if the owner has no plans on using them regularly and thus some simply become permanent fixtures), and relocated the nest to it in hopes that it would return.

Hopefully this will help the bird use the nest without being disturbed by cyclists.

By the way, the name of the station that this happened at was called “Tsubame station (Barn swallows)”. It seems there was also a mix-up in the type of the birds, too!

There is a saying in Japan, “like a pigeon who's been shot by a peashooter” which is used to describe someone taken by surprise. This time, it seems like it was the human that took the shot from a peashooter, and got surprised by the bird!