A fishy tale: the pigeon-eating catfish of Albi

​Albi yesterday, viewed from the gardens beside the magnificent Toulouse-Lautrec Museum. It reminded me of a paragraph from my book, Menu from the Midi:

‘In the shallows around the islets and sandbanks of the Tarn, ravenous catfish lie in wait, and any pigeon that strays too far into the river for a drink risks a sudden death. This unlikely behaviour has been filmed for French television and the BBC’s Planet Earth, but it has had little appreciable effect on the pigeon population.’

These thoughts were particularly appropriate as I was in Albi to meet photographer Jon Davison to discuss our collaborative project about pigeonniers (pigeon towers) in the south of France.

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