Jim and I continue to have our flock of pigeons, with Henry and Snap Dude eating out of our hands. Snap Dude, left, has been with us for about six years. Henry, right, is the offspring of Pierre, the baby bird I first rescued and raised in 2004.

Each subsequent summer has brought new pigeons into our life,as they quite literally 'fall from the sky' onto our doorstep.

Racer Five

That’s how a pigeon that we named, Racer Five, arrived mid july. Jim saw him on the road in front of our house unable to fly, with a cat nearby perched and ready to pounce. He didn't resist when Jim picked him up, as he was used to being handled by people; he was someones racing pigeon. Turned out Racer Five was on route from Orlean to Pau, 900 kilometers, and was two-thirds his way home. We found this out after we called the number off the green band on his leg and talked to the owner. He told us the bird was probably just tried and over heated, and asked if could we keep it till it was able to fly; could be a week or two. So I set up a corner in the kitchen with newspapers a water bowl and food. The pigeon seemed to know to stay on the paper, except when we left the door to the front room open and he would go hide somewhere and we would have to then find and chase him around to get him back in the kitchen. He didn't seem so interested in the food we gave him, and only ate when he was out on the terrace with the other birds. Because he couldn't fly we always had to bring him inside when we weren't around, due to the cats that frequent our terrace knowing there are pigeons to eat. After a couple weeks Racer Five was spunky and healthy but still not flying. We finally realized he had a broken wing after we tried dropping him from a few feet to see what happened. Well, how else could we know? We then we knew we had a problem: the owner would have no use for a racing pigeon that didn't fly and we couldn't keep the bird. We called a friend who keeps pigeons and asked her if she would take him, she came by one afternoon and we boxed him up and sent him off to his new home.

Tai Tai

The same day we got Racer Five settled in his new home we got a call from Mary Claude, a friend who's home is a designated official bird rescue sight. She had raised a baby pigeon by hand and now it was ready to join a flock, but there weren't any other pigeons where she lives. Mary Claude has a way with birds, she even kind-of looks like a bird. She has raised several birds that have returned to nature. But she bonds with her birds in a way that, after they go back to nature they are known to stop by her house during migration just to say hi. I must admit I was a bit jealous when she told me her pigeon rode around on her shoulder; I've never gotten our birds to do anything but eat out of our hand. Even Pierre, who I raised by hand, and I wanted to believe loved me like a mother, was really just interested in getting a free hand out. But she told us, what began as fun - the bird following her around or riding on her shoulder, soon became a problem as the bird would not let her alone, it shit all over their house and showed no signs of returning to nature.

Mary Claude asked if she could to bring Tai Tai over to our house and introduce it to our flock of pigeons, since it had not encountered other pigeons, it apparently didn't know it was a pigeon. When she first let Tai Tai out of the cage on our terrace, the bird sat on Mary Claudes head, then shoulder and was biting her finger - another irritating activity it had developed. Then it flew off to a roof behind our house and sat with the other pigeons, flew back and landed on my head this time, before flying off again not to be seen the rest of the after noon. We assumed success. NOT

Jim noticed the mentally retarded man, who lives behind our house, sitting on a stoop with Tai Tai on his shoulder laughing that the bird was biting his hand. The next day the same woman who took Racer Five showed up at my door with Tai Tai in her arms. She had been at Le President Cafe on the corner and Tai Tai was there walking on tables, landing on peoples heads and biting peoples fingers. Some kids had captured the bird and were tormenting it, so she rescued it and brought it to our house. I said, "I know that bird.", then explained the history: that Tai Tai didn't know it was a pigeon and wanted to hang out with humans, which was all it had know until the day before. Tai Tai was frightened and shaking from her experience. OUr freind then offered to take Tai Tai with her to keep, as she had done with Racer Five. So we boxed her up in a real wicker pigeon carrier I found in the basement of our house.

Yesterday I saw the woman with who took the birds and she reported that both pigeons are doing fine; Racer Five seems happy runnings around on the floor of the cage retired from his racing career and Tai Tai is slowly getting the hang of being a pigeon, although she will have to remain in a cage as she will probably always land on heads and have the habit of biting people.

Returning to France, and our pigeons, for the summer

That is Jim with Pierre, the pigeon we raised, on the left and Snap Dude on the right.

We returned to our home in France this May and within an hour, Pierre and Snap Dude were on our terrace to greet us.  Maurice, Pierre's wonderful partner for the past five years, never showed up. We assume Maurice didn't make it though the winter, and we wondered if Pierre had already chosen a new partner or if perhaps she and Snap Dude, Maurice's competition for top pigeon, would get together.  

For one week we enjoyed Pierre's company, then we took off for a week trip to the Camargue and when we returned, she was no longer around.  We assume that she left the flock to find a new partner.   

In the mean time, one of Pierre and Maurice's progeny, Henry has taken to eating out of our hands, and competing with Snap Dude for top billing.  

Life goes on,  but I can't but hope that Pierre comes back someday for a brief visit, if not to stay.  And if we don't ever see Pierre again, we at least have Henry and Snap Dude to continue to entertain us.  This is a picture of Henry:

Pigeon Portraits from around the world

Sorry I haven't blogged lately. There are many birds here in Bodega Bay, home of Hitchcock's famous film, The Birds, but not many pigeons. Besides I'm working on my children's book about Pierre the baby pigeon and life in France.

My friend, Susan Dorf, just sent me these photos of Pigeons San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. And this has prompted me to add a new blog that I will add to with my photos or others photos of pigeons around the world.






And here are some more pigeons photos from around the world:

Amsterdam

France

On our terrace in France

The Pigeonhole Principle

 

The inspiration for the name of this mathematical principle: pigeons in holes.  

Here n = 10 and m = 9 so we can conclude that some hole has more than one pigeon.  

Also known as Dirichlet's box (or drawer) principle, states that, given two natural numbers n and m with n> m, if n items are put into m pigeonholes, then at least one pigeonhole must contain more than one item.

Pigeons return to scene of Mumbai siege

Mumbai, Dec. 6 2008 (AFP) - 

Thousands of pigeons that flew the coop as Islamist militants and Indian security forces battled for almost three days at Mumbai landmarks last week have begun returning.  

Pigeons that were a constant presence around the Jai Mahal and Trident/Oberoi hotels and Mumbais's main railway terminus disappeared for more than a week after the November 26 attacks that turned the city's southern peninsula into a battleground.  

To the delight of bird lovers and tourists, many of whom feed the birds, the pigeons have begun to return, the Mumbai Mirror said.  The Mirror quoted Yuraj Kaginkar, the hospital manager for the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, saying the he had found some pigeons with injuries that must have been sustained during the siege.  

Traveling with his ambulance to sites taken by the militants, he found "a lot of pigeons with injuries to their head, wings, feet and some fractures," he said.  

Constant blasts had forced pigeons that roosted in the hotels to keep circling, unable to eat, for three days, he said.

The times of India said 15,000 pigeons were fed daily opposite the Taj, and quoted an animal activist saying grain had been put down to attract the birds back.  

Many of India's 1.1 billion people are animal lovers, believing animals, like humans, possess souls.

Friends and Pigeon Blog followers:
This article was brought to my attention by a friend. If you find any interesting pigeon stories or facts, please pass them on.

RICHARD TOPUS, WWII PIGEON TRAINER

This obituary was sent to me via my friend Cal.  Thanks Cal!  

Richard Topus WWII Pigeon Trainer

In January 1942, barely a month after Pearl Harbor, the US War Department sounded a call to enlist.  It wasn't men they wanted.  The Army was looking for Pigeons.  

To the thousands of American men and boys who raced homing pigeons, a popular sport in the early 20th century and afterward, the government's message was clear:  Uncle Sam Wants your Birds.

Richard Topus was one of those Boys.  He had no birds of his own to give, but he had another unassailable asset:  He was from Brooklyn, where pigeon racing had long held the status of a secular religon.  His already vast experience with pigeons- long ardent hours spent tending and racing them after school and on weekends qualified him, when he was still a teenager, to train American Spies and other military personnel in the swift, silent use of the birds in wartime. 

World War II saw the last wide-scale use of pigeons as agents of combat intelligence. 

Topus, just 18 when he enlisted in the Army, was among the last of the several thousand pieoneers, as military handlers of the birds were known, who served the United States in the war.

A lifelong pigeon enthusiast who became a sucessful executive in the food industry, Topus died Dec. 5 in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of 84.  

Pigeons have been used as wartime messengers at least since antiquity.  Before the advent of radio communications, the birds were routinely used as airborn couriers, carrying messages in tiny capsules strapped to their legs. A homing pigeon can find its way back to its loft from nearly a thousand miles away.  Over short distances, they can fly a mile a minute.

(Actually the longest recorded flight took 55 days to fly from South Africa to England) 

In World War I, pigeons proved their continued usefulness in times of enforced radio silence. After the United States entered WWII, the Army put out the call for birds to racing clubs nationwide.  In all, more than 50,000 pigeons served the United States in the war.  

Topus enlisted in early 1942 and was assigned to the Army Signal Corps, which included the Pigeon service.  

Though the Army phased out pigeons in the late 1950s, Topus raced them avidley till nearly the end of his life.  He left a covert, enduring legacy of his hobby at Friendship Food Products, for which he oversaw the design of the highly recognizable company logo, a graceful bird in flight, in the early 1960s.

- New York Times

Pierre the baby pigeon

Pierre was so young when we found her, most people told us we shouldn't bother trying to save her.  "Impossible" is what they said.  OR WORSE, they would ask, "Why bother?"   

But against all odds, and even against the wishes of our neighbors, who thought there were already enough pigeons in the world, we saved Pierre.  
Pierre was some kind of miracle. 

And so, when Pierre got a little bigger, she lived on a branch in our kitchen.  

Till one day when she flew away.  

 

It was the following summer, when we returned to our french village, that we found Pierre (right) living in the attic behind our terrace with her mate, Maurice (left).    

The only way to determine the sex a pigeon is by behavior.  Males bow and coo and strut, with fanned tails dragging the ground, around their object of affection.  Females are more demure. Maurice was clearly the male.  So much bigger than the other birds, he reminds me of a Parrot, except he's all black with iridescence.   

Pigeon Fact: Pigeons are close avian relatives to the parrot.