Mystery pigeons

Back in mid-August, I was watching the birds on the back patio when I saw a bird I’d never seen around the area wandering under the bird feeders. It was clearly a type of urban pigeon, whose technical name is “rock pigeon”, but this bird was quite different from the usual pigeons we see in cities and barns. Unlike the plump, barrel-chested city pigeons, it had a sleek, slim body and a gorgeous maroon-and-white color pattern. The maroon feathers around its neck were iridescent, shining purple in the sunlight.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but it returned the next day and has been a regular visitor almost daily ever since. When it’s not on the ground foraging for food, it’s perched on the edge of the roof peering down, and it’s content to hang out and watch any human activity including picnics and yard work. A closer inspection revealed red metallic bands around each of its legs, confirming my suspicions that this wasn’t a wild bird. This pretty, friendly creature was someone’s racing pigeon.

Rock pigeons were brought over to the Americas by European colonists in the 1600’s, and have spread all the way from southern Alaska to Patagonia. Archeologists believe pigeons were domesticated at the dawn of human civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt. They’ve been associated with our developments ever since, so no one really knows what their original exact wild range was; it probably encompassed an area from Europe and North Africa over to India. But today you can find them on every continent except Antarctica.

Those early pigeon hobbyists observed the wild pigeon’s most remarkable trait: their almost unerring ability to find their way home, even when they’ve been hooded and can’t see any landmarks. Scientists believe they use the earth’s magnetic field and low-frequency sound waves to navigate; disruptions to either of these can lead the birds to get lost, although they usually regroup and find their way back to their lofts.

Prior to the invention of telegraph and radio, pigeons were bred used for carrying messages (fun fact: the Reuters news agency began business as a carrier pigeon service, carrying stock prices between Belgium and Germany!). Later, they were integral to the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War I and II, carrying messages that couldn’t be detected over the airwaves. I always love the stories of heroic animals who helped us win these wars, and I like to think of how my new friend comes from the same kind of specially bred bird.

Homing pigeons are bred for their pretty color patterns, many of which can occasionally be found in the wild. But most rock pigeons- usually described as “feral” since their ancestors were domesticated — have the familiar gray back and iridescent gray-green heads. The one who adopted me is a “red checker” variety, and it’s quite lovely.

Homing pigeons are bred for carrying messages and racing, and racing varieties can fly at speeds up to 90 miles an hour. Assuming they can survive the hazards of the race and the usual hazards of being a bird, they can fly over 1000 kilometers. So they question is, where did my new friend come from? None of my neighbors keep pigeons, so I wonder if it got off course and has decided it likes my area. It won’t let us pick it up to get the numbers off of its bands, and no one has answered our online inquiries about a missing racer.

Feral rock pigeons are often considered pests in urban areas and farms. I have Hmong friends who hunt them as game birds at the behest of farmers looking to clear pigeons out of their grain stores, and I’ve seen signs around Duluth warning folks not to feed them. But even though they’re introduced, they haven’t crowded out native species. In fact, they have assisted in the recovery of species like peregrine falcons, providing them with plenty of prey in the urban areas and cliffs where they both dwell. If you do like having them around, please don’t take the advice of Mary Poppins and buy them a bag of bread crumbs, which are terrible for them! Regular birdseed along with uncooked rice or dried peas and lentils, on the ground or in a platform feeder, will do just fine. My little buddy seems to really like safflower seeds. I hope it has a home loft somewhere or at least somewhere safe to roost; we’ll see if it sticks around for the winter.

Sarah Morris is a bird-watcher and outdoorswoman who explores northern Wisconsin from her home base in Wausau. She can be reached at morrisoutside@gmail.com.