Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Despite letting my rehabilitation permit expire so I could have a quiet summer with my family, I’ve ended up spending a lot of time this year on bird emergencies. Most of them have required only a few days of work, but one developed into a permanent commitment—I took in a hurt baby pigeon in late May. She’s named Bernice—my 6-foot-tall 14-year-old son Joey named her for Bert and Ernie’s pigeon friend on Sesame Street. She was found in a barn in Carleton with an enormous gaping wound on her side. She was still at the stage where a fancy restaurant might serve her as “squab,” but at our house we don’t look at pigeons with hungry eyes. Unfortunately, this one looked at us with hungry eyes. Baby pigeons are fed semi-digested, regurgitated seeds by their parents, clearly beyond our capacity, so I fed her a soupy baby bird hand-feeding mix at first, eventually going to birdseed mixed with the hand-feeding powder. Now she’s taking just plain birdseed.

Because of the open wound, Bernice had to be confined, and instantly took a liking to me and Joey, the two people who fed her. She loved it when we stroked her, and whenever we walked by her cage she made all sorts of high-pitched begging sounds. As her wound healed, she started beating her wings, sometimes taking off in actual flight, a development which seemed to surprise her at first. Now she’s a strong flier, and spends most of her days outside, usually sitting on our roof. But the moment Joey steps outside, she flies down to perch on his head or shoulder. Last week her took her across the street to our friend Mary Tonkin’s house to see how good a homing pigeon she is—she instantly took off, flew home and circled around our house, and then flew back across the street to Joey. SO from now on she’ll have to be released by someone else to train her to develop her natural homing instinct. We obviously can’t work on this during hawk migration, since we live right below Hawk Ridge.

Many of the pigeons flying loose in cities and farm country are descendants of the carrier pigeon heroes that served in the Army Signal Corps—others are descendants of lost homing pigeons or pigeons raised to produce eggs and squab for food. People often confuse “carrier pigeons” with Passenger Pigeons. Passenger Pigeons were the beautiful birds looking like oversized, colorful Mourning Doves native to America that were hunted to extinction a century ago. Carrier pigeons and homing pigeons are nicknames for domesticated Rock Doves—pigeons native to Europe and Asia. Many pigeons have reverted to a genuinely wild state in mountainous regions of the US, nesting on cliffs and spending their whole lives away from humans, but most nest on buildings or bridges and feed heavily on spilled grain at railroad tracks and farms, or on whatever scraps they can scrounge up on city streets. Because of their long history of domestication, pigeon plumage varies from white to black, with rusty browns and bluish grays in between. Bernice is the standard gray with a white rump.

I’ve never been much interested in introduced birds, but Joey’s pet Bernice is giving me much more interest in pigeons, especially in their intelligence and loyalty. If we had to get a new bird this summer, I’m glad it’s Bernice.

REDONE 2 YEARS LATER

Two summers ago, I let my rehabilitation permit expire so I could have a quiet summer with my family, I ended up spending a lot of time on bird emergencies anyway. Most of them required only a few days of work, but one developed into a permanent commitment—I took in a hurt baby pigeon in late May. She’s named Bernice—my then 6-foot-tall 14-year-old son Joey named her for Bert and Ernie’s pigeon friend on Sesame Street. She was found in a barn in Carleton with an enormous gaping wound on her side. She was still at the stage where a fancy restaurant might serve her as “squab,” but at our house we don’t look at pigeons with hungry eyes. Unfortunately, this one looked at us with hungry eyes. Baby pigeons are fed pigeon milk and semi-digested, regurgitated seeds by their parents, clearly beyond our capacity, so I fed her a soupy baby bird hand-feeding mix at first, eventually going to birdseed mixed with the hand-feeding powder. By mid-summer she was taking just plain birdseed.

Because of the open wound, Bernice had to be confined at first, and instantly took a liking to me and Joey, the two people who fed her. She loved it when we stroked her, and whenever we walked by her cage she made all sorts of high-pitched begging sounds. As her wound healed, she started beating her wings, sometimes taking off in actual flight, a development which seemed to surprise her at first. She quickly became a strong flier, and now spends most days outside, usually sitting on our roof. But the moment Joey steps outside, she flies down to perch on his head or shoulder. When he took her across the street to our friend Mary Tonkin’s house to see how good a homing pigeon she is—she instantly took off, flew home and circled around our house, and then flew back across the street to Joey. Joey decided not to train her to develop her natural homing instinct since we live right below Hawk Ridge. Instead, he taught her how to pick up and put down pieces of his electronic chess set. So far she hasn’t won a game.

Many of the pigeons flying loose in cities and farm country are descendants of the carrier pigeon heroes that served in the Army Signal Corps—others are descendants of lost homing pigeons or pigeons raised to produce eggs and squab for food. People often confuse “carrier pigeons” with Passenger Pigeons. Passenger Pigeons were the beautiful birds looking like oversized, colorful Mourning Doves native to America that were hunted to extinction a century ago. Carrier pigeons and homing pigeons are nicknames for domesticated Rock Doves—pigeons native to Europe and Asia. Many pigeons have reverted to a genuinely wild state in mountainous regions of the US, nesting on cliffs and spending their whole lives away from humans, but most nest on buildings or bridges and feed heavily on spilled grain at railroad tracks and farms, or on whatever scraps they can scrounge up on city streets. Because of their long history of domestication, pigeon plumage varies from white to black, with rusty browns and bluish grays in between. Bernice is the standard gray with a white rump. And as Bernice developed into sexual maturity, we also discovered that “she” is really a boy.

I’ve never been much interested in introduced birds, but Bernice gave me much more interest in pigeons, especially in their intelligence and loyalty and squirrel-chasing abilities. If we had to get a new bird in the summer of ‘96, I’m glad it was Bernice.