[John_D]

I'm John_D cos that's me, but my email handle is "pidgie" for obvious reasons.

Must have walked round with blinkers for years, as I honestly don't remember noticing the pigeons everywhere. My first 'experience', tho, was when one pooped on my school uniform cap when I was even smaller than I am now, and my father said "Only a pigeon - it's a sign of good luck!". I thought it just meant a dirty cap

Back in '95 in the summer, a tired homer walked into my lounge when I was out, having left balcony door open. Found him when I got home, chewing a potted plant. I knew so little I gave him crumbled dry corn flakes (He got bird seed next day) He stayed about 3 days and then he was off. He was very tame and friendly and, I think now, obviously much loved.

Next year I found a squabbie in a plant pot outside in mid-January in the icy cold. Her father was "PP" who became my resident balcony pigeon for 18 months. He lost one mate to illness and got another, and raised numerous little PPs. If only I could have known then where to find out about pigeons, illnesses, treatment and plastic eggs. I had to do battle with the management and snobby neighbors to keep my pigeons in place, but they stayed until PP disappeared one day.

Since then, I've found a few sick, injured or just abandoned pigeons around here, but have had to take them to the wildlife hospital where I know they will do the very best they can for them. That's because, due to working schedules, I am not ever home enough to be able to give them care here.

It was entirely due to pigeons, through the web page I made about my balcony pigeons when I first got onto the internet, I met Cynthia! After we'd been corresponding for a couple of years, Cynthia was a wonderful support to me when I had a personal crisis, and part of 'recuperating' was my first visit to meet her, the pigeons I felt like I knew by then, and the furry residents.

Fortunately, the canine section of furry residents decided I was more or less OK and could come back

Over the past three years our aviary space has grown and grown (and will soon grow a little more) to keep pace with the needy pigeons that somehow end up there.

Down here on the S Coast of England I still have balcony pigeons, and an occasional egg slips past me unnoticed until too late, so I've had just a few balcony babies too

John

 

[andinla]

My Handle & love of all creatures

Hi well my username/handle andinla came from my name andi & I am in LA California.

I have loved animals of every kind since birth my family tells me. I drove them crazy in my early childhood. I would bring home cats, dogs, birds, you name it I had it. My uncle owned a pet shop for years and I would go and help out in his store feeding & cleaning cages. I also brought home many sick animals to nurse them back to health if they were sick. I had my own dog walking business when I was ten, I went around the neighborhood and would walk everyone's dogs for free and after a couple of months some of them started tipping me.. My favorite client was a Irish wolfhound named Dermitt they are the largest dog breed in the world.

I started a lost pet service in 1993 named ~ Dog Gone Locate~ which was the first taped show for Animal Planet. I could of been the DOG HUNTER! ha! I found my friend Zorra my 13 yr. old white Siberian Husky I rescued from Carson animal shelter 10 years ago she was going to be put to sleep that same day. She was my birthday present to myself. Mama Kitty She is a 11 year old rescue Himalayan cat who was about to deliver a litter of kittens, which she did on my birthday, (birthday thing again weird) I kept one of the kittens and named him D-O-Gee he is a black & white huge cat who likes to hang with the dog . He is a person I swear trapped in a cats body. We also have Sunny Bunny a white long up eared bunny who is 9 years old who came from a dirty pet shop situation, when he was just a baby. The past two years we have lost a 16 year old calico cat named SIB- "surprise in basket" came to me in a basket from a friend at 6 weeks old. Two other bunnies passed away from old age and this past Feb. 05 we had to put down our 15 year old golden retriever named Cider.

As for pigeons I came to admire them when a pigeon showed up in my garage one day and would just stare at me, eventually she came and sat on my desk, I named her baby she lived under the eaves of my house and would visit me daily for several years, her life was cut short from a neighbor who shot her while she was on my back fence. I currently feed a flock of 75+ at the school yard (but don't tell any one OK) ha!

P.S. If you ever find a cocoon make sure you place it in a jar or bowl that is larger in width than a butterfly's wings. I had found a cocoon baking in the hot Calif summer sun in my driveway and thought it was dead inside because it seemed hard as a rock. I placed it in a cup in my garage and forgot about it, to my surprise a week later there was this beautiful butterfly, as I examined it closer I noticed it's wings were crumbled at the ends. This was do to my sticking the poor thing in a container where it was unable to expand it's wings upon exiting the cocoon, if a butterfly is unable to expand and dry it's wings in the first five minutes of life they will be disabled and unable to fly. The butterfly was unable to fly, I felt so quilty I took it out to the flowers three to four times a day and would sit near it as it crawled from flower to flower. I fed it with a little spoon sugar water & salt water. I did that for two weeks. One morning I put her on a flower and my mom drove up and said lets go to breakfest, I did and had totally forgotton the butterfly. I could not find her when I returned. I felt so bad that she never got to fly.

Sorry this was so long.

Take Care

I think you all are special people with hearts bigger than most, you all make me feel normal on those days when I feel helpless , or sad do to the inhumane treatment of our feathered friends, at times when no one seems to care (sometimes not even family members) So I thank you from the bottom of my heart & I know one day we all shall meet with are wings attached way up there in a place called pigeon.com ~AKA~ Heaven...........\|

Attached some pics of some of our pets

Andi Dahm

 

[feralpigeon]

Thanks for sharing your story, Andinla. A very touching story about baby.

fp

 

[tim16]

The Tim part is of course my name. (don't post here much, too busy with work). The 16 part is the number that is assigned to me at work. Wish this was all more exciting.

Tim

 

[andinla]

I love reading all the members

stories. I think it could actually be the beginning of a good book. I printed out several pages for a co-worker of mine to read, just to give her an idea how nice the people are here at pigeon.com are. She is a pigeon person too!!!

I hope more people write on this topic...

thanks
Andi

 

[Mistifire]

My name is the one I have been using for online games for years, I think i just liked the idea of mist and fire together.

I have always had a love for animals, my family tells me when I was little I had imaginary pets instead of imaginary friends, one was a pony that slept in my bed Before I could talk I would "rescue" potato bugs and worms from the sidewalk..which my mom found in my pockets on laundry day. I remember rescuing butterflys putting them in a box house outside but a spider found them and i came home to a pile of wings.

My first pet that i rescued was a runt kitten in the winter some kids on a friends street chose to throw her in a kiddie pool. I tried rescuing eggs that fell from trees before i knew the requirements for it to hatch.

The animals everyone said dont touch them because they hate people and are mean, those are the ones i made friends with, I have always had a way to show animals my intentions. The wild animals always got more of my bread than I did when we ate outside.

My interst in birds came from an advertisement I found for a small incubator and 4 quail eggs, after convincing my parents I got my quail baby and had to convince my mom he was not dirty just because he was an animal, eventually I saw her kissing and cuddling him too! He went everywhere with me because
he cried when I left the room as I was momma and his mate. he used to feed me bugs

When I lost my quail baby (eatten by a rescue cat staying for the night) a friend wanted to get me another bird to raise but wasn't sure of another quail, so He got me a pigeon egg.

Since I live on my own now I have gathered quite the zoo myself, currently I have:

-My 2 rescued dogs, one was abandonded on the side of the road and afraid of people, to get her to my house I had to take the mushy dog food and filp a little to her with a spoon and scoot away a few feet, then flip her another little bit, finally got her home and someone thought she just wandered into the yard and they chased her off again, so back to the spoon of food.. now happily living with me for 8 years,
the other was an abused puppy that was going to the pound and i have had her for almost 2 years.
-2 toads saved from a dried up pond in a place they were going to build houses over,
-my box turtle that was in the freeway and was under eatting and sick,
-a cockatiel who came to my driveway outside,
-my parakeet that was a runt and only had one foot, he was also under eatting because he could not get to where the food was in the pet store and his new mate,
-a pet store iguana that had a bad infestation of mites,
-I have a rooster living in my bathroom rescued from someone that did not want 2 roosters and was going to give him to someone that wanted to start a cock fight,
-my dwarf bunny,
-my ferret which my mom told me when i was younger i would never get,
-2 sugar gliders,
-a chameilon,
-my pigeon
-and my hubby if he counts
I am curently tring to get a nurses assistant job at a vet near my home. It has always been my dream job. I found a feral pigeon flock and I fed a pair that had a little squeaker and I have been trying to decide where would be a good spot to feed the entire flock

 

[Maggie-NC]

What a wonderful story. You truly are an animal/bird lover. Thank you so much for sharing your history because I really enjoyed it.

Maggie

 

[mr squeaks]

I sure hope

that you get that job, Mistifire! The profession needs caring people like you who have a "natural" ability with animals!

GOOD LUCK and let us know!

 

[re92346mos]

I'm not to creative either, re is for Rena, 92346 is my zip, mos is for Modena. The breed I Show. When I was a little girl I read a book called "Chanco", this book was a book about a pigeon named Chanco who was in the Army Signal Corp. The book was written like the pigeon wrote it, and he tells everything from the time he was born to his learning everything, to ending up in the Army. There are even pictures of real Army birds in it. I tore out the pictures(which I now wish I hadn't) and hung them on my wall.So I was then addicted to pigeons!

 

[Maggie-NC]

Rena, I just had a chance to look at your site for the first time. It is really nice.
I particularly like the trailing "welcome". Never saw anything like that before.

Maggie

 

[re92346mos]

Thank you

Thank you Maggie, it was hard for me to make it because I do not know much about computers. It took along time.

 

[BrianNAmy]

Brian and I are husband and wife (were engaged when we started) therefore "BrianNAmy" and needing a quick name to find info on a bird we needed help with. I don't remember which bird we first posted here with, but I do remember the birds that have come through our apartment.

First was Bernie (Short for Bernice, Bert's pigeon on Sesame Street) who was an adult male that just needed some time to rest. He stayed with us a few months, was reluctant to leave at first, but then flew off to find a girlfriend and be on his own. He would come back for seed every once in a while with his gal (Dali, short for dalmation because she was speckled)

Then there was Polly who walked up our stairs to our door, and also just needed a rest. She stayed only a few weeks, and was more than happy to leave.

Then we got Stewy (short for Stewart, we didn't name him) as a squeaker from a family who'd hand raised him after finding him in a trailer park driveway as a baby (He is recently gone from this life...unknown reasons...RIP kiddo!). He thought he was a people. He found a mate in Pizzie (from Pizza because we found her outside a pizza place as a young squeaker) so she stayed with us to be his mate. They layed many eggs, and we finally decided to let one hatch. That is Soupy (an odd mix of Stewy and Pizzie's name) who is about 4 months old now.

After that there have been many that have come in and out of our lives.

We had one pigeon that we thought was almost dead, and thought we were giving it a quiet place to die. Well, it got stronger with some rest, and by the next day was standing and looking around, but still week. We tube fed it and gave it some vitamins and antibiotics, and within a couple of days she was back to her strong self, and flew away.

We found one by the dumpsters at night(named Dumpy) who just needed some rest, and went on his way in a few days.

We had Splotchy who is a pied pigeon (hence the name) and was a squeaker who was sitting in the parking lot at work. I was informed that I could be written up and escorted from the property for taking this sweety (in a closed box) onto the campus. So I called Brian and he came and got her. She just needed to grow up and realize that she knew how to fly, and she was released to be with a friend of ours flock. She is doing well.

We've had several with varying injuries and illnesses that haven't made it, but as I'm sure you know from Brian's posts, we currently have 2 broken wings. Bebe is the one with the protruding bone, and is a mild tempered male. Puffy is the other one who was found in a bucket outside the pet store with a sign on it. He is a hot tempered male who will puff up if you even THINK about looking at him (hence his name). Bebe gets around better than Puffy even though his wing drags, so Bebe has the upper perch, and Puffy has the lower. It's an understanding it seems.

We also have 6 finches (3 from the humane society, prenamed Lucky, Sylvy, Sophie, 1 from the pet store to even the pairs named Dizzy because she kept knocking herself out on the windows in the pet store, and two children from Dizzy and Sylvy named Pinky and Dandy. Pinky and Dandy have two sisters named Squeeky and Toy that we gave to a friend of ours mother.)

So those are our birds (at least most of them...I know I'm leaving some that have been through out...I know there was Sweetpea the sparrow, and a dove or two...but they were passed on to other people to take care of, or simply passed on.

Brian- did I miss any?

 

[mr squeaks]

Lady Tarheel

is correct, Rena! You have one terrifice website! LOVE the music!

Do show us more about your birds...

 

[traci_sss]

my handle is boring ... my first name is traci.. and i have a lot of s's in my last name.

I use the same name on everything and for every page I have to sign up for.

my first pigeon was Hegee. She was brought home after my husband almost ran her over with his 18 wheeler. She has been the best pigeon and I loved her so much I wanted to get her a buddy. the buddy completely ignored her, so I got a few more and then they multiplied. LOL..

I love my birds..

 

[bartuska]

I have to use my name, Catherine or Bartuska--or I'll forget how to sign on I just got into pigeons last spring after reading an article about my brother in law in northern WI doing the dove releases. He sent me down 4 squeakers and I bought a few more and here I am. We moved to a house on the outskirts of town 3 years ago with a couple of acres and is still zoned as agriculture--so I have plenty of room for everything . I have always been a great lover of birds--but only if they can fly ( I feel too sorry for the caged ones). I avidly watch and feed the wild birds, also. I do the dove release--but don't go nuts over it yet--I prefer to just spend time with my birds.
I have always had some sort of critter growing up--now I have my 19 pigeons (more to come) a terrier, 3 cats and 3 hermit crabs, 4 kids and a husband and a full time job --I'm a physican assistant in ER (hence my avian influenza pobcession) My whole family loves animals and we are also vegetarians due to that fact. My husband goes to his workshop to get peace and quiet--I go to my loft. Life is good

 

[andinla]

Thought I would bump this up for the new members

to post. So here ya go.

Andi

 

[GimpieLover]

my first pigeon was Gimpie. i had found him unable to fly from lack of feathers and limping around the Mc Donalds parking lot. i have never been able to look the other direction at an animal in need. so i took off my expensive sweatshirt lol and scooped him up and continued to walk home. no real bird expirience except for my 2 parakeets, so i give the upmost thanks to everyone on this forum for all the help and advice they have given me. gimpies feathers have not yet grown back but he seems perfectly happy stuffing him self with sunflower seeds and checking him self out in the mirror the lilttle darling is even scared to be outside now. and my newest member was rescued from a horrible pet shop. no more for me untill i have my own place. then i have a feeling i am going to go pigeon crazy

 

[Reti]

I am little late to this post, but anyway, Reti is my name (Greek from Areti).
I wasn't allowed to have any pets when I was a kid, so first thing I did when I lived on my own was taking in stay dogs and cats. The house was always full.
I never noticed the pigeons until four years ago when a couple of ferals came to my balcony. My husband gave them some crackers and I used to scold him and tell him that I wouldn't want a flock of pigeons frecvent my balcony, in fact I wouldn't want any pigeons on my balcony. Lee kept feeding them behind my back and the pair proceeded in building a nest in one of my plant pots. Needless to say it took less then four days to fall in love with them. I named them Frankie and Gerri. Only one of their eggs hatched, my beloved Andrew. I was, and still am so much in love with this little guy, he is a great friend. I was playing with the baby from the minute he opened his eyes, I fed him extra food, took him in at night when it was chilli and spend countless hours holding him. Luckily F&G didn't mind me handling the baby, they were excellent parents and fed him even after I had him in the house for hours.
Soon I had a flock of 30-40 birds coming for food, a bath and fresh water.
We had a lot of joyous moments but also a lot of heartache. Hawk attacks, illness, shootings from the neighbors, accidents and eventually poisoning and our eviction from the building.
Andrew and Whitney, his mate live with us inside now. It took him a while to adjust, since he was an indoor/outdoor bird, but he is fine now.
In additon to our many birds, we also have four cats, a turtle all rescues.
Three weeks ago I also took in two giant bunnies someone brought to the clinic to PTS (reason, he has a litterbox problem) Not a reason to PTS for me.
So, for now we are full and fun house, never a dull moment.

The funny part is, my mother (who dislikes pigeons) told me only recently that my grandfather, before he was married he used to rescue pigeons, he had a sun room adjusted for his birds he took in and he took great care of them. I never knew that story.

Reti

 

[Lovebirds]

My husband and I met over the internet. After corresponding by e-mail and instant messages we called and talked to each other on the phone. Our handle on the instant messges site (Yahoo?), don't really remember was Lovebirds. That's how our loft name came to be........

 

[Pidgey]

Our (Lin and I) first rescue was the original "Pidgey" who lives with us today. She was about a week from being able to fly. I intended on keeping her only until she could be reintegrated to a local feral flock. We did do that but she'd come home with us every night. It got to where we could drive up to the area where she was sitting on the line with the rest of them, roll the window down, put out an arm and she'd just land on it and walk right in.

Then she'd perch on the closet door overlooking the bed during the evening. Lin couldn't stand the thought of ever losing her so we made her a loft and got her some true homers for companions. Today, you can throw her out but you better stand back from the window 'cause she'll knock you over to get back in.

We also started feeding the local feral flock and would occasionally get sick and hurt ones. Our first attempts at healing and fixing them up were awkward but every heartache drove the search for more knowledge, meds and other equipment.

While we've learned a fair amount due to our own experiences, I think the efforts to help emergencies on this forum has led to a great deal more study than I would ever have done on my own. It seems to be getting more difficult to separate actual memories of rehabs from the virtual ones from here. So many times, the urgency of a case here has precipitated a furious research project that has burned in so deep it seems completely real. Ya'll seem so much like family (goodness knows, ya'll are thought better of than some family members... ) that it seems funny that we haven't even met!

Pidgey