PIGEON WITH YOUR KITCHEN WORKTOPS?

All I ever knew about racing pigeons could have been written on a postage stamp. Not on the back – in the margins. When Damon arrived I had to go from zero to moderately knowledgeable in about 30 minutes. Moderately knowledgeable being “knowing enough not to actually kill him.”

Damon, the pigeon

Damon, standing still

Damon showed up with little fanfare. Suddenly someone noticed a depressed-looking pigeon walking around in the space between our office block and the warehouse next door. We don’t know how long he had been there for. He showed no inclination to fly, or even walk very far. He spoke even less.

Then we noticed the tags on his legs. Damon was no ordinary, miserable pigeon. He was a racer, lost and out of gas. He was in deep, deep trouble.

Damon, walking

We may make the best and hardest granite kitchen worktops available, but we do not have hard hearts. We were not happy to leave Damon helpless. We are on a farm, complete with all the usual farm accoutrements, cats, buzzards, kites and even a fairly potty labradoodle. Dangers lurk everywhere. Some years ago we even discovered a dried and flattened robin, crushed as thin as a credit card between two slabs of granite for kitchen worktops. Affordable Granite on John Lory Farm is no place for an exhausted flightless pigeon.

Damon, posing behind a plant

What followed could be described as a “rapid learning curve”. A process of googling different sites first of all gave us the information that Damon’s greatest need was probably water. On a long flight, serious dehydration can set in. Water must be given – but in a form that can be sucked up – beads on the ground won’t work. And a really tired and dehydrated bird, confronted with a different water bowl, may not even realise that it is seeing water, so you need to pour some in to make a splashing noise. This and other valuable information, including feeding if you need to care for a pigeon any longer than we did, was all found here, on the Homing Pigeons website.

I hold the phone to Lukasz’ ear so that he can receive full instructions on how to hold a pigeon while reading its tags. 

We could make out very little of the text on Damon’s leg tags. We could see a GB and a number, though. From another page on the Homing Pigeon website we found that GB meant Damon was affiliated to the Royal Racing Pigeon Association.  None of us kitchen worktops people were very familiar with this body, but a phone number was fortunately provided. Soon I was speaking to a very kind lady who told me that we would need to read ALL of the numbers and letters on the tag in order to proceed further in our care for Damon. And to do that, we had to hold the bird properly. I found it impossible to grasp what was asked of me in this, so I copped out by giving the phone to Lukasz.

Damon, relaxing in the AG office

Reading the tag

The tags. I got some of the crud off with spit. 

We managed to read the tag! The lady on the phone told us that Damon was from Walsall. We had an owner’s name and phone number, and a phone number for the local pigeon club – over at Horsham. She said that someone from there could pick Damon up and look after him until his owner could get to him.

And so it was. A guy called Barry turned up in his van – straight from a decorating job. We had been marvelling at the distance from Walsall; Barry said that was nothing – Damon could have got lost on his way home from Spain! He reassured us that our pigeon was unharmed, with no visible injuries, just exhausted and dehydrated. We had done all the right things. Damon said goodbye, and he headed off with Barry.

So we got back to quoting for granite and quartz kitchen worktops! And if you fancy some of that greeny-blue pigeon neck iridescence in your kitchen, we recommend Emerald Pearl! 😉