Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 19:22:15 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Steve Huy Subject: Re: No Ordinary Pigeon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You most likely have a lost homing pigeon in your yard. These can come in many colors and sizes and I have had several that match your description. The bands are placed on the birds during races. The number and release time are recorded. When the bird reaches home, the band is recorded again, sometimes by placing it in a special box that reads it and records the official time. As your pigeon is obviously lost, the owner will likely not be interested in having it back. Its no good to them if it can't race straight home. The bands can sometimes be traced to a specific club, who can sometimes ID the owner. Often they just tell you to wring its neck. Many of my pigeons have bands on them. They never made it home during a race or were sold at auction as poor racers. Rumor has it that my source buys them from a person that sells them to certain restaurants in DC. They now live in relative safety with me. J. Steven Huy Middletown, Maryland, USA mailto: nsawwhet@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================