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Tuesday, September 09, 2008

it was a homing pigeon!

after my post about the pigeon in my garage, i got a nice email from my friend dirk. we don't get to talk much anymore, which is sad. always a source of fantastic trivia, he came up with some great insight on my bird encounter:

"Anyway, I got a kick out of the pigeon in your garage. It's a homing pigeon, probably stopped to take a break from his race back home. My dad use to have them in Germany and still gets magazines and books about them. He may have ducked into your garage to get away from a falcon or hawk or something. Pretty cool though, there's a whole homing pigeon racing culture out there, and believe it or not, they've got WAY more prize money on the line than our races....hundreds of thousands!!!!! "

so, i never knew this about his dad. i was pretty impressed to learn long ago that his dad was a chimney sweep as a young lad...yes, an honest to god chimney sweep. now to learn that he's a bird enthusiast, i'm really impressed. what we don't know about people can fill a very large book.

on topic, i'm not happy that i turned away a frightened bird. he WAS very difficult to extract from the area, so i have no doubt that he was running from something. so, if you ever have a pigeon ducking into your car port or garage, or even your basement or living room(!), cut the little guy a break...he may be hiding from the neighborhood bully.

thanks, dirk.

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