The night before last I got a call from my Dad. he’d found a pigeon on the front porch. A racing pigeon, exhausted and half starved. He rang Wires and they put him onto the Australian racing Pigeon Association who were able to track the bird’s owner by the tag around its foot. Turned out the bird belonged to a guy called Kevin who lives in Figtree, the suburb next to where I live on the south coast. Kevin’s pigeon had
been missing for three years!

Yesterday Dad and the pigeon caught a train down from Sydney, the pigeon traveling in a cardboard box drilled with air holes. Kevin picked them up from the station and they came round for afternoon tea. It
wasn’t Kevin’s missing pigeon after all but he reckoned he’d be able to trace its owner. He told us how he’d become interested in racing pigeons when he was about 14 years old. Birds he’d bred had raced in
Thailand and were set to race in China later this year. But the pigeon racing scene is losing its appeal. Used to be that you’d lose a bird here and there but now many of them can’t find their marks due to “interference” in the atmosphere, possibly from mobile phones. The birds who don’t make it home are doomed. Most can’t fend for themselves in the wild. Apparently there are several racing pigeon breeders in the area where I live and if I get up early enough I’ll be able to see the birds swooping overhead in great big racing flocks. Fancy
that!