Update On The Pigeon Project At Bowers School Farm.

I guess I've never discussed this topic here before so I guess a little background is in order:

The West Bloomfield School District (in West Bloomfield, Michigan) had a farm donated to them back in the 1960's.  Apparently someone on the school board at the time had the foresight not to simply sell off the land; the farm was retained basically intact and it still serves as an educational resource for the school district.

About a year and a half ago, I approached the farm manager about installing a pigeon loft at the farm.  He was quite receptive to the idea because pigeons can be an excellent educational tool.  They're not very large and from them students can learn about genetics, animal behavior, physiology and a host of other biology related subjects.

Through a long series of small steps forward and many steps back we finally got a loft at the farm and we've got pigeons in the loft.  We had three pairs of baldhead show rollers, a pair of fantails and two extra male fantails.  This brings me to my update.

One of the male baldheads died this week so I've now got an extra female baldhead roller.  Having a spare female in the loft is not as much of a disruption as is having a spare male (go figure!) so it's not imperative that I pair her up or get rid of her.  Frankly I had kind of expected the male to die because the last time I was at the loft, his breathing was very labored and  I couldn't really do anything for him.

The two remaining pairs of baldheads have clear (i. e. infertile) eggs in their nests.  I would have pulled the eggs but even fertile eggs look infertile for about a week after they're laid so I wanted to wait since I'm not completely sure when these eggs were laid.

The fantails, much to my surprise, have finally laid two eggs of their own.  And at least one egg is fertile.  I hope to soon see a new fantail in their nest. 

 

5:25:13 PM  #  
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Pigeon Billboards At Wimbledon
This strikes me as a novel way of advertising.  Painting pigeons and having them fly around is certainly out of the norm. I've got to hand it to those "ad wizards".  They never sleep.
11:11:26 AM  #  
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Man Attempts To Smuggle Pigeons Into Canada
A man tried to smuggle pigeons into Canada.  Some people are far too emotionally attached to their birds.
3:04:01 AM  #  
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