The Pigeon & the Eagle

The following is pretty lengthy so I'll spread it out over several days.

I arrived at work on Saturday, September 11, to find a homing pigeon in the swing room walking ‘round just having a grand time. Homing pigeons have a very acute sense of direction and when released will fly directly home, sometimes over great distances. This one had lost it’s way though and had landed on our dock the previous afternoon and had somehow entered the building and spent the night. During the early morning hours after we arrived the bird walked pert’ near the whole building, exploring every nook and cranny.

Since he had to be hungry and thirsty I thought he would be getting pretty weak and dehydrated so we tried to feed it what ever we had, which at the moment was broken up sandwich cookies. He had to be hungry ‘cause he set to eating them right up.

After a couple hours I got to thinkin’ that shortly the carriers would be coming in and with another 100 or so people in the building, incoming trucks with the mail, rolling containers going everywhere, that bird’s life was going to be pretty short. So my supervisor, Vern, and another employee, Jim, corralled him and when he tried to escape me he ran right into Jim’s hands.

We took him to the dock and when Jim released him he flew about 30 feet and stumbled to a landing. That’s when I knew this bird, if it got off the ground, wasn’t going to last very long. We left it with food and water and went back to work pondering what we should do.

After a while I remembered Hurricane Ivan was coming and if our bird did get in the air he definitely was a gonner. There was no way he would have the strength to withstand the winds of a storm. I had to find another way to get him home.

I searched the Internet and found the phone number of the local racing pigeon club and after several tries managed to reach someone. He asked about the number and some letters on the leg band. I had the number, but had seen no letters. When I mentioned it, he said he would have the club president call me to see if we could find the owner.

While waiting, I sensed the letters were important and went back to the bird and managed to retrieve them, AU MSR. After a short while I got the call and when I gave these to the caller he said he didn’t recognize them but would check and get back to me.

After several hours with no word I thought, “I can run a search on the internet and surely I can find this myself.” And low and behold I did locate the corresponding reference to this code, it was the identifying code of the Mt Sopris RPC in Gypsum, Colorado.

I called the number listed and got no answer. Then I ran a search for the club president’s name in Gypsum and found three possible numbers, including the one I had, for him or a relative. All calls were fruitless with no answer, but one had an answering machine so I left a message.

Several hours later, after getting no response and needing to go home, I recaptured the bird, set him up in a borrowed transport cage with food and a moisture supply and arranged for someone else to take him home to care for over the weekend. Our cat would have had lots of fun with that bird.

Part II tomorrow.

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