Post by siobhan on Sept 2, 2016 10:38:07 GMT -5
This morning on the way to work a woman pulled into the intersection and blocked traffic so she could pick up a pigeon sitting in the road and move him to the grass. He was favoring a wing and he was the wrong color to be a wild pigeon. She drove on after she moved him, but you know me. I turned around and went after him and took him home and put him in Maggie's old cage with food and water to get well, if he can. I don't know how he came to be in the road and he's banded, so he's a homing pigeon who clearly either got lost or got too hurt to get home. I'll spare you my rant on what I think of homing pigeon people who take them miles from home and race to see whose birds get home first and shrug off the ones who never come home at all. I raised pigeons when I was in junior high and mine were "homers," but all that meant was that I let them fly free and they came home at night to roost.
At any rate, this one is very young, probably less than a year old, and since they usually race the males, I'm guessing it's a boy. He's white with black markings and he let me stroke his head, so he's at least a little tame. I haven't examined his band because I was supposed to be on my way to work and just zoomed home to get him taken care of before I had to head out again. He's in the Birdcage with Clyde and the gang, partly because that's where the supplies are that suit a pigeon and partly because I didn't want Rocky and the dogs annoying the poor thing all day. The little parrots are used to having a pigeon around, even though Maggie's been gone for several months, and they won't think anything of him being there.
If he was hit by a car, then even though I didn't see a visible injury, he might have a concussive injury and those are nearly always fatal. We'll see how he's doing when I get home and if he ate something and if he pooped. If he's doing both of those things, then he's probably going to be okay. The last bird who had that cage was my canary Trixie, so it's set up for her and not for a pigeon at all. But it was ready to go because we always keep a rescue cage ready and waiting. Bill is insisting that we're only going to keep him until he's well and then track down his humans through his band and give him back. We did agree that our bird family was complete and we weren't going to get any more even after some of these pass on. But ... well, I miss Maggie and here's a pigeon who just dropped into my lap, as it were. LOL IF he lives.
At any rate, this one is very young, probably less than a year old, and since they usually race the males, I'm guessing it's a boy. He's white with black markings and he let me stroke his head, so he's at least a little tame. I haven't examined his band because I was supposed to be on my way to work and just zoomed home to get him taken care of before I had to head out again. He's in the Birdcage with Clyde and the gang, partly because that's where the supplies are that suit a pigeon and partly because I didn't want Rocky and the dogs annoying the poor thing all day. The little parrots are used to having a pigeon around, even though Maggie's been gone for several months, and they won't think anything of him being there.
If he was hit by a car, then even though I didn't see a visible injury, he might have a concussive injury and those are nearly always fatal. We'll see how he's doing when I get home and if he ate something and if he pooped. If he's doing both of those things, then he's probably going to be okay. The last bird who had that cage was my canary Trixie, so it's set up for her and not for a pigeon at all. But it was ready to go because we always keep a rescue cage ready and waiting. Bill is insisting that we're only going to keep him until he's well and then track down his humans through his band and give him back. We did agree that our bird family was complete and we weren't going to get any more even after some of these pass on. But ... well, I miss Maggie and here's a pigeon who just dropped into my lap, as it were. LOL IF he lives.
