My First Pigeon

[Kiev Patty]

Hi everyone.

First off I want to thank everyone at Pigeon-Talk for this excellent resource. The posts have helped me over the past 5 weeks to deal with numerous questions.

I am writing because today my little pigeon, Pidgie (how original, but it was my first pigeon), seems to have rejoined his (?) flock. I am hopeful because I had been seeing a pair of big pigeons hanging around my balcony, plus a similarly-sized small one. The story began at the end of August when Pidgie somehow got out of his nest, maybe on an early practice flight, and wound up nearly being eaten by my 3 cats. I came home one day to find feathers and blood all over my apartment, and found the bird behind the washing machine. Having had no experience with pigeons, I had a friend (fellow animal lover) phone some vets and we learned what to get to clean the wounds and that we should keep him warm and not let him out until the skin had healed. By the way, I live in Ukraine and my Russian isn't good enough for a situation like this.

So, the first night Pidgie stayed in a shoe box inside a towel. We cleaned him with the antiseptic solution from the pharmacy and tried to keep him still. The next day I put him in a large, clean cat carrier with towels and newspaper, plus water. I fed him smashed canned corn from my finger. Later the second day my friend Oksana brought a box of premium birdseed. We cleaned him once a day with the solution, and that day we put some gooey natural type of rescue remedy gel on him. It mad his feathers all oily so I only did it once.

He was drinking and eating birdseed and his poops went from green to brown after a couple days. He still had those pin feathers on his head and was missing quite a few due to the cat attack. But over the following weeks he grew a fantastic fan tail and a lot of soft white underfeathers that hadn't been there before. I witnessed a voice change and an amazing recovery. Within a week the wounds had scabbed over, including a rather deep one under a wing on his side.

He was super friendly and one of my cats acted as his protector. He blocked Pidgie's cage from the other 2, who continued to view him as food. Pidgie learned how to threaten the cats with 'the wing', pecking, and a 'WOR-tle' sound. Every evening after work I took him out, fed him, and let him hang out in the living room while the cats were somewhere else. Actually, Maxy, the protector cat, hung out with us. They seemed to be friends and Pidgie liked sitting on Maxy's back. Maxy was a little bit scared of the bird, but they acted like they accepted one another and could be within a few inches of each other with no strangeness. I only kept Pidgie in his cage at night, when he slept by my bed, then in the morning he made noise so I'd move the cage into another room. Every morning I changed his water and cage paper and towel, and gave him fresh food. After the first week I began putting him on the balcony with his cage open, so he could fly away when he was ready. I think that day came today, after 5 or 6 weeks with him.

We'd had about 15 days of non-stop rain here, and today was the first sunny day in a long time. It was mild out, like in the high 50s. The above-mentioned pigeons, two adults and a young one, had been visiting the balcony ever since I put bird seed out, about 2 weeks ago. I thought one looked a lot like Pidgie. I hoped Pidgie would join them. I think they live just above my apartment, on the 9th floor. I heard their babies squeaking around the same time Pidgie was squeaking with me.

I had been worried he was getting too attached because the last few days he wouldn't stay in his cage at night without throwing himself against the metal grating door. So I let him stay in the living room alone. I worried he was becoming spoiled because every night he insisted on sitting on my shoulder for more than an hour. He used to be satisfied to sit on one of two shelves I have, one of them above the computer where he could watch me.

So today I came home in the middle of the day, said hi to him on the balcony, and when I got home tonight he was gone. The big pigeons have been around every day, so I hope they took him home. Little Pidgie was even a bit rebellious when I went to pet him today. He scooted out of my range outside the balcony window on the window box.

Like any mother bird, I am suffering from empty nest syndrome. I wanted to tell my story and tell you how my life has changed after meeting Pidgie. I never thought much of birds, not negatively, just thought they were pretty but never knew they had such personalities. My mom had parakeets and lovebirds when I was growing up. She also had a parrot when she was little, and I grew up with 5 dogs. I have had cats for the last 20 years, so having a pet bird never seemed possible until Pidgie came along.

I hope you enjoyed reading one more pigeon story. I sure have enjoyed reading yours.

Take care.

Patty in Kiev

[Lovebirds]

Patty, that is a wonderful story.........I'm going to see if a moderator can move it to it's own thread so more people will see it.
Thanks for sharing.

[Jay3]

Patty, that was such a nice story. Thanks for sharing it with us. It's so nice to hear stories with happy endings. I know, when you get to know them, pigeons are really amazing little creatures. It was great of you to help this little one.

[TAWhatley]

Great story, Patty! Thank you so much for assisting this young pigeon!

Terry

[amyable]

That was a lovely story Patti. You did a great job with Pidgie. I do hope he visits you from time to time so you know he is ok and happy, as I'm sure he is with his new family.

All the best,

Janet

[Victor]

Patty, pigeons can and do seem to change ones life. Welcome to Pigeon Talk and thank you for sharing your story. We love stories and pictures here.

[KIPPY]

Love your story and thank you for helping the little guy out.

Like any mother bird, I am suffering from empty nest syndrome.

I wouldn't be surprised if Pidgie came back for a visit.

[Kiev Patty]

Thanks for reading. So far I haven't seen him, only the two big pigeons. Maybe his parents? I hope he's having fun, flying around out there, but I sure do miss him, especially when I come home at night and he's not sitting in the window inside the balcony flapping his wings and pecking at the window.

[Kiev Patty]

One week and Pidgie hasn't come for a visit. I hope he's okay. The weather's been great. Now I wish I had taken some video of him doing the 'wing wiggle' when he was still a squeaker. At least I managed to get some sound recorded of his voice changing.