Fancy That

Gutter birds. Feathered rats. Rats with wings, as Woody Allen called them. I speak, of course, of the bird we know as the pigeon. Some may view pigeons as filthy vermin that crap on statues and gather in city squares to eat up french fries or whatever else people toss their way. However, one man's rodent in another man's treasure. There are people who admire these birds- they breed, race (yes, race) and even show these birds. As in pigeon shows. Friends, these people walk among us. They are known as pigeon fanciers.

My parents are pigeon fanciers. In fact, my dad is considered a Master Breeder, which in the pigeon world is a prestigious title. Yes, there is a pigeon world.

I know at least one reader of this blog was baffled and somewhat amused to learn that people show pigeons. It's an understandable reaction- who the hell breeds pigeons for show?! Well, more people than you might think. In fact, there are a number of pigeon fanciers you may have heard of:

Noah
Queen Elizabeth II (the royal lofts are still being maintained today)
Elvis
Marlon Brando
Walt Disney
George Foreman
Jimmy Smits
Picasso (his daughter's name is Paloma, which is "pigeon/dove" in Spanish)

Oh, and this guy, who my dad ran into at a show a few years ago:



There are over 300 breeds of pigeons being bred today. Some are raised for show (fancy breeds), some for acrobatics, and some for racing. Homing and Racing pigeons are trained to return home, race, and sometimes carry messages, respectively. The Homer and Racer are basically the same bird; they're just bred to serve different functions.

Carrier pigeons have been used for thousands of years to carry messages, sometimes in times of war. The ancient Egyptians made rooftop roosts, and developed a special form of paper for their pigeons to carry. At the first Olympic games in 776 B.C., every athlete brought a Homing pigeon from his village. If he won his event, his would be the bird that carried the news home. The Romans used Carrier pigeons while building their empire. Genghis Khan established pigeon relay posts across and Asia and much of Eastern Europe.

Pigeons have actually saved thousands of lives; some even earned medals in World Wars I and II. Pigeons were used by the Iraqi army as recently as the Gulf War. The French, Swiss, Israeli, Iraqi and Chinese armies still use homing pigeons today.

Most people breed racing/homing pigeons for sport. Racing pigeons can travel 600 miles from the place of release to their home loft, reaching speeds of 60 mile per hour. The birds are released a from a predetermined distance, and the first bird to arrive home wins.

Other breeds of pigeons perform acrobatics. Rollers fly high in the sky, then suddenly stop in midair, dropping straight down towards the ground in a somersaulting, "rolling", or tumbling motion. There are actually competitions to see which bird can free fall the furthest distance. Sometimes, these birds are bred to "roll" so far that they can hit the ground and die. One of the tragic sides of pigeon breeding.

Another breed is called the Parlor Roller. This pigeon doesn't fly- it actually rolls on the ground! And, as you can guess, there are competitions to see which bird can roll the farthest. Some birds can now performing rolls of up to 800 feet. Those crazy pigeon people.

Then there are the show birds- the "fancy" breeds. These include many strange and interesting birds, such as the Fantail, the Pouter, the Frillback and the Jacobin. Show pigeons are judged by "standards"; the ideals of a particular breed. Standards include things like shape of the body, clarity and color of the eye, length and color of the beak, length and fullness of the muffs, stance, color, etc. Each breed has it's own set of standards. My parents raise two kinds of show birds: the English Trumpeter, and the Old Dutch Tumbler.

The Trumpeter is a squat, full bird with feathers on its feet (feathered feet are called muffs) and a crest on its head. It's a very popular show bird, and can fetch a high price among breeders- sometimes between $500 and $1,000. The English Trumpeter Club (there are clubs for most every breed) is serious club.

Personally, I'm partial to the Old Dutch Tumbler (photo at top). I think it's a very under-appreciated bird; it's elegant, graceful, with a clean head, "boat-shaped" body and full muffs. It comes in a variety of colors, like solid white, solid black, splashes and mottles (mixed colors) and "barred" varieties, like blue and silver. The modern Old Dutch does not tumble, although its ancestors did. The Old Dutch Tumbler is raised today only for show- it just sits there and looks pretty. My parents have been raising Tumblers for over 25 years, and have belonged to the Old Dutch Tumbler Club for just as long. For whatever reason, the breed attracts more of the blue-collar type of pigeon fancier. An expensive Old Dutch might go for $100. The breed is simply not very popular in the United States; in fact, it's so uncommon here that it's considered a rare breed. I couldn't even find an active link to an Old Dutch photo online. You can check out Old Dutch Tumbler standards here.

In January, the 84th National Pigeon Association Grand National Show and Convention was held in San Bernardino. My parents came away with a bunch of trophies in numerous categories, including Best of Breed:



Last month, there was another show in Utah. My parents came away again with more wins, including Best of Show- meaning the black Old Dutch that won in January was named best bird of all the fancy breeds. The accolades just keep piling up!

When I was about 9, my dad had the idea of raising a few pigeon in coops on our yard. He had been into pigeons as a kid, flying them and keeping them at one time or another. He had liked Old Dutch Tumblers, so we got a few just for fun, and my parents soon joined the club. My sister and I spent many afternoons at pigeon meetings and shows. We'd go to shows at various fairgrounds, like Del Mar and Pomona. We saw some cool birds and had fun with the other kids whose parents were into pigeons. A few of the club members were interesting people, to say the least. They were often more oddly entertaining than the birds themselves.

My sister and I had a few of our own birds, which we entered in a few shows. I had a "blue bar", which was a bluish-gray bird with two black bars on it's wings. We actually bought it off another club member, and it was a beautiful bird. I entered it in shows, even though it wasn't one we bred at home. To the dismay of its previous owner, it won some big categories, including Best of Show once. I can imagine how unhappy the guy was, considering he sold us the bird, and a kid had "won" with it.


Me at age 10 with my champion blue bar Old Dutch Tumbler.

Those were the early days, though. Since then, all the birds my parents have shown have been born and bred in their lofts. Pigeon breeding takes time and dedication, as well as a talent for breeding the right birds with one another to achieve a higher-quality bird which strives to meet the breed's standards.

My parents have a third breed, which they just have for fun. They are white Racing pigeons, and came from the flock which was released at the LA Olympics in 1984. They were a gift from a family friend who owns some of the best and most attractive Racers around.

The homing instincts of pigeons are incredible. Pigeons, once acclimated to their homes, will not leave their homes even if set free. And the birds that are bred for their homing instincts can be released hundreds of miles from home, only to return, most often the same day.

Once in awhile, a stray pigeon will find its way into one of my parents' lofts. These are birds who get lost, or were moved from one home to another and have don't have their bearings. Many years ago, a stray bird had made its way into our yard. My dad didn't want it, so a couple of days later he took it to work in Downey, and let it go. When he got back home to Hacienda Heights that night, the bird was there. So, a week or so later, when he had some business in Moreno Valley, my dad took the bird out there and let it go. It was a really windy day, making navigation really difficult. The next day, there it was in the yard again. Finally, a few weeks later, my dad had to make a trip to Fresno. He figured there was no way a stray would make it home from that far a distance; Fresno is about 240 miles from Hacienda Heights, and this bird was not bred for homing. The bird showed up at home a couple of weeks later. After that, Dad had the idea of just selling it to the local pet shop. He was able to sell the bird to the same pet shop three times. You can guess why.


Me in '96, feeding the local "Commies" on Catalina Island.

About 5 years ago, my parents came to visit me while I was living in New York City. Along with they typical tourist stops of Ellis Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, etc., they had made one special stop only a pigeon fancier would make. One evening, my friend Mark and I joined my parents in a visit to a rooftop loft in Brooklyn, where a guy kept his "kit" (flock) of Flight pigeons. This guy had hundreds of birds, and liked to take part in a time-honored game game that local pigeon owners like to play. The kit owners release their pigeons from apartment building rooftops, where they fly freely until encountering flocks released by other owners. The kits then intermix, and at a certain point they head home, arriving with less or more birds than when they started out. The owner whose kit returns with more birds wins. A "captured" bird might be kept and trained to fly with the new flock, or it might be sold back to the original owner for a ransom- seriously. . A pigeon owner might lose half his flock in one night, while others capture just as many. These competitions are called The Brooklyn Pigeon Wars, and they often take place nightly in the summer months. Most of the 8 million residents of New York City are oblivious to the aerial combat that goes on above them.

Besides breeding pigeons for show, sport or just as a hobby, there is one other kind of pigeon breeding. Some pigeons are raised for food. Most pigeons that are eaten are baby pigeons, which are called "squab". Squab is considered a delicacy in places like Morocco, China and France. I'm sure it's tasty, but I think I'll pass.

See, you just never know what you're going to learn by stopping by Mi Nido ("My Nest" in Spanish, coincidentally). Of course, this post just barely scratches the surface regarding pigeon info. I'll end this entry with some interesting pigeon facts, and some links to some particular breeds of interest:

• Pigeons are mostly found in urban areas, due in large part to the fact that their wild ancestors roosted in crevices on rocks and cliffs, not in trees.

• Pigeons drink by sucking up water, unlike most birds, which have to scoop up water and tilt their heads upward to let the water slide down their throats.

• The Passenger Pigeon was once considered to be the most numerous bird in the world. It is estimated that in the early 1800s, there were between 3 and 5 billion Passenger Pigeons in North America. Unbelievably, this bird is now extinct due to over hunting. The last one died in 1914.

• Along with flamingos, pigeons are the only birds that produce a "milk" similar to that of mammals. Both females and males produce a fluid, which, mixed with food internally, creates a milky substance that feeds the baby birds in the first few days of life.

•There is no scientific separation between doves and pigeons- they are the same species. The term 'pigeon' is usually applied to the larger of the species and 'dove' to the smaller of the species. It's interesting how doves are symbolic of peace and love, and pigeons are associated with trash and filth!

• Pigeons are actually clean birds. If you place a container of water out for them, they will all jump in to bathe. Once clean, they won't go back into the same water.

• The common pigeons you see in urban areas (fanciers call them "Commies") are descended from birds brought from Europe by the colonists as food. They also include strays from homing and racing flocks and sometimes an occasional showbird.

• There have been homing pigeons that have returned home from distances over 1,000 miles.

• The Carrier pigeon Cher Ami ("My Friend" in French) was presented with the French “Croix de Guerre” medal after saving an entire battalion in World War II.

• The Carrier pigeon GI Joe was credited with helping save over a thousand allied soldiers by delivering a single message in World War II. He was awarded the Dickin Medal for Gallantry.

• In the mid- to late 1800s, Catalina Island used pigeon mail carriers to send and deliver messages to and from the mainland.

• All modern-day pigeons are the descendents of the Rock Dove or Rock Pigeon, which originated in North Africa, Europe and Asia, and is still around today.

Some particularly beautiful breeds:

• The Swallow

• The Archangel

• The Pink-Headed Fruit Dove/Temminck's Fruit Pigeon

• The Victoria Crowned Pigeon

• The Seychelles Blue Pigeon



Dad with the Champ, a black Old Dutch Tumbler.


A yellow English Trumpeter, a white and a black Old Dutch Tumbler.


White Racers.


Like many breeds, Trumpeters come in a variety of colors.


An English Trumpeter and its mate. Pigeons mate for life.