Dimity update

[dodo]

Hi again all,

I'm just dropping by to let you know how my friend Dimity the white and caramel pigeon is going. Here was the first thread where I mentioned her (looking at the thread tells me Dimity first came to my house 9 months ago, so I'm guessing she is maybe 12 - 16 months old now).

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=4672

I was asked to keep you up to date, so here I am to oblige.

Things appear to be going very well. I don't think Dimity has failed to come to my house even so much as one single day since December last year. She has now blended in perfectly well with the local ferals who come every day for breakfast on my back lawn. Even though she has blended in behaviorally, she is still a rather strange sight amongst the 25-odd other grey pigeons, although there are a couple of white speckled ones in the flock that also tend to steal the show and look very cute in doing so.

The flock tends to hang around quite closely to my house and the birds enjoy going on regular "practice" flights quite often. Often, I'll be on my morning walk a good 20 minutes from home and the flock will swoop over my head at full tilt. Again, Dimity is bang smack there in the middle, looking as much at home as she does ridiculous (if you get my drift) Also, when I get back home from shopping, she and about 8 mates will do a lap of honour around my house. Whether this is just to show off to me, I don't quite know.

Character-wise, Dimity never has very much to say at all. She has to be one of the quietest pigeons I have ever come across, barely ever making a noise at all. Interestingly, she and I now have a little "party" trick. She usually spends most of the daylight hours either on my roof, the next door neighbour's roof or my back lawn. But if I go to the back door and call "Dim-Dim", she comes running on her little fat legs to the back door That's a little trick I'm saving up for when my sister next comes up to visit me. She is still extremely shy and won't let me actually touch her, but I have no inclination to do so and have no need to do so at present (touch wood). That said, she won't let any other human within a country mile of her.

Dimity doesn't seem to be interested in the bloke pigeons whatsoever. She has male pigeons "hitting" on her all the time, but every time this happens she either ignores them or comes running to my back door.

As for the rest of the ferals, it is interesting to see some generational change. There are about 5 or 6 relatively young pigeons in the flock, who clearly have known me and my backyard from their very earliest days. They are the ones who sit outside my bedroom window sill in the morning and wait for me to get out of bed (how do they know which room is my bedroom I wonder - they never see me in it from the inside nor would they have seen the curtains move from the outside?). They are quite domesticated and follow me up the back yard as I bring out the food each morning. They walk so close to me that I have to watch I don't tread on them!

They also seem to be very ordered socially speaking. After breakfast, they stand in a queue - literally - to the bird bath. One bird takes a bath while the next one waits. And so on until the queue is exhausted.

On a different note, it's always sad when one of the feral regulars suddenly stops coming every day and just disappears. This happened to a pretty brown/grey pigeon recently and I worry about what became of him. Anyway, that's life, as it were.

It's bang in the middle of Winter here now, but unlike the northern hemisphere, the temperatures here are relatively mild, with it rarely going below freezing point (the really cold climate starts another couple of hundred kilometres inland). I was a bit worried how these pigeons would cope with the colder weather, but it doesn't seem to worry them too much.
Hope you enjoyed the update



Jonathan

[cyro51]

Thank you Jonathan, that was a welcome and heartwarming update!

Cynthia

[AZWhitefeather]

Hello Jonathan,
Many thanks for your update. So glad Dimity is doing well. I'm quite sure she perches on the neighbors roof to keep an eye on you.

Dimity never has very much to say at all. She has to be one of the quietest pigeons I have ever come across, barely ever making a noise at all
I think that's true for many female pigeons. Pij'ette (the pigeon in my avatar), very rarely makes a 'peep'. The only time I ever hear any type of noise coming from her is when I'm cleaning her cage & get too close to her 'fake' eggs, then she will grunt just a bit, otherwise she is a quite as a church mouse.

It's bang in the middle of Winter here now
I find it truly amazing, given the extended geographical locations of our members, how we are able to share each others experiences with just a touch of a key.
As you are in the middle of winter I'm gearing up for another day of temperatures expected to exceed 107 degrees.

Cindy