Hazel Martell
Sutton
Monday, May 29, 2017 10:06 |
Has anyone lost a homing pigeon?
As the storm was going on Saturday, a homing pigeon landed on the roof of 41 Main Street, presumably a bit disorientated/exhausted with battling through the bad weather. After couple of hours, he disappeared and I didn't see him yesterday, but he's just been in my garden (behind 36/38 Main Street) and is definitely a racing bird as he's got his racing rings on. So, if anyone local has a bird missing from Saturday (or knows how to catch him to find out who he belongs to), he's hanging around behind the block of houses with the Cost-cutter shop at the end. Hope he soon gets home, as he's a very handsome bird... |
Derek Bowers
Sutton in Craven
Monday, May 29, 2017 15:54 |
if you can get hold of some pigeon food to feed it with when it feels strong enough it will fly home.the only trouble is that its owner will probably neck the bird when it gets home.
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Hazel Martell
Sutton
Monday, May 29, 2017 17:05 |
It's eating wild bird food with the other birds at the moment, Derek. And its owner won't necessarily neck it if it goes back home - that treatment is more deserved by the race officials who had no more sense than to release the birds go when so many storms had been forecast nationwide.
Many years ago we were visiting Dad's cousin in South Wales. He'd been rushed into hospital on the day before the big race from Toulouse - again on a stormy day when the birds shouldn't have been released. His friend let his pigeons in, but when Glyndwr got out of hospital he realised one wasn't his. He checked its rings and found the owner lived in Burscough Bridge, so on our way back north we brought the pigeon - with note tied to its leg with our phone number as Glyndwr didn't have a phone - in a box on the back seat of the car as far as the M6/M62 junction. We stopped briefly on the hard shoulder and let the bird out of the box. It circled once, then headed in the right direction. At about seven o'clock next morning, we were woken up by the phone ringing. Yes, it was the owner who'd found the bird waiting on top of the cot when he'd got up that morning - and he was so pleased to have it back that he was actually in tears...So, no, they don't all end up in pies - though I'm not naïve enough to think that none of them do (sadly!).
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Derek Bowers
Sutton in Craven
Monday, May 29, 2017 17:13 |
when I worked at theRSPCA in Bradford we used to contact the owners,they would say they we will send you the cost of the postage to send them back dead,we never did, |
Hazel Martell
Sutton
Monday, May 29, 2017 20:02 |
How horrible! One of the most amazing things I remember from childhood is being allowed to stand in Glyndwr's pigeon cot and watch a pigeon hatch out of its egg. Also remember being a bit scared - though I daredn't tell anyone at the time - of his old-fashioned pigeon clock which stood on the dresser in the living-room. The clock was cylindrical and made mainly of brass with lots of dials on the front. As WWII was still strong in people's memories, I convinced myself it was a bomb, which is why I was scared!
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Maurice Atkinson
Keighley
Tuesday, May 30, 2017 08:23 |
This is worth a read.
http://www.urbanwildlifesociety.org/pigeons/fancy/LostPijAbuses.html
It's a bit like greyhound racing, isn't it. (Another so-called "sport"!! )
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Hazel Martell
Sutton
Tuesday, May 30, 2017 16:04 |
Thanks for that, Maurice. Unfortunately I don't seem able to access it. However, I do know that pigeon racing and greyhound racing are often not at all good - similarly horse racing and most other so-called sports that involve animals...So, maybe the pigeon will decide to go feral after all - in which case I hope he does better than the last one that decided to as he got squashed on Main Street...
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