Nikola Tesla (inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer) was a columbiphiliac…a pigeon lover
Actually, so am I, but I think Tesla just might have taken it a little too far. If you have ever wondered exactly where you stand between normal and crazy, I think the following could tilt your perception of yourself toward normal.
I read this in Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives Of Eccentric Scientists And Madmen by Clifford A. Pickover, which I found highly entertaining. The original quote is an excerpt from Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O’Neill, who actually knew Tesla:
Tesla told me the story; but if I did not have a witness who assured me that he heard exactly what I heard, I would have convinced myself that I had had nothing more tangible than a dream experience. It was the love story of Tesla’s life. In the story of his strange romance, I saw instantly the reason for those unremitting daily journeys to feed the pigeons, and those midnight pilgrimages when he wished to be alone. I recalled those occasions when I had happened to meet him on deserted Fifth Avenue and, when I spoke to him, he replied, “You will now leave me.”
He told his story simply, briefly and without embellishments, but there was still a surging of emotion in his voice.
“I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them, for years; thousands of them, for who can tell–
“But there was one pigeon, a beautiful bird, pure white with light gray tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I would know that pigeon anywhere.
“No matter where I was that pigeon would find me; when I wanted her I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. She understood me and I understood her.
“I loved that pigeon. “Yes,” he replied to an unasked question.
“Yes, I loved that pigeon, I loved her as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. When she was ill I knew, and understood; she came to my room and I stayed beside her for days. I nursed her back to health. That pigeon was the joy of my life. If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.
“Then one night as I was lying in my bed in the dark, solving problems, as usual, she flew in through the open window and stood on my desk. I knew she wanted me; she wanted to tell me something important so I got up and went to her.
“As I looked at her I knew she wanted to tell me–she was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes–powerful beams of light.
“Yes,” he continued, again answering an unasked question, “it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory.
“When that pigeon died, something went out of my life. Up to that time I knew with a certainty that I would complete my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something went out of my life I knew my life’s work was finished.
“Yes, I have fed pigeons for years; I continue to feed them, thousands of them, for after all, who can tell–”
There was nothing more to say. We parted in silence. The talk took place in a corner of the mezzanine in the Hotel New Yorker. I was accompanied by William L. Laurence, science writer of the New York Times. We walked several blocks on Seventh Avenue before we spoke.
Tesla had a plethora of other philias (loves) and phobias (hates), including a fear of spherical shapes. He could not bear to see pearl earrings and later in his life could not even use the word “sphere.”
Odds 'n Ends...the next generation 
hmmm. is this fiction you’re reading?
Alas, no ’tis not. Tesla was apparently in love with a pigeon.