“So how many will you take?”
Since I already knew what could happen to wayward doves, Eileen’s next tactic was highly effective. “If I don’t find a taker for these doves, I’ll have to release them. I’ll feed them if they come around. But there are hawks in this neighborhood, so I hope I don’t have to resort to that.”
Was this a cosmic setup or what? I blurted out my sad hawk-and-dove saga. We both sniffled. Eileen’s praise for our attempted rescue was capped by a pronouncement worthy of a carnival fortune teller: Didn’t I see it? I was meant to have doves.
How about two dozen?
I was resolute: “One dove.”
She parried: “Two is the minimum, but it’s almost as bad as one. Birds live in societies, just like you and me. How would you feel if for the rest of your life it was just you and one other person?”
I had no comeback for that one, just questions: How would I know how to care for them? How many to a cage? What do they eat? Eileen rattled off information, including why some of her birds were banded. A pair of birds banded with the same color—red, yellow, green, gray, and so on—indicated a mated pair. Females are banded on the left, she explained, and males on the right foot because “males are always right.” She did not smile as she said it.
I stood firm at six birds. Eileen began netting them hastily, before I changed my mind. As she began putting the birds into a carton for the trip home, one dove made an odd noise, something like a hiccup.
“Just a little cough,” Eileen said. “They’re all fine. Doves are easy peasy. ” She handed me a slim newsletter from the American Dove Association. “Subscribe to this. It will answer any questions you have.”
I WILL NOT dwell on the spirited exchange when Tom came home that evening. My husband is a kind, caring physician, a lung specialist who taught at a university medical school for many years. He has compassion for all living things and an artist’s eye for natural beauty; his bold, witty watercolors brighten most rooms in our home. Tom is also a practical man, and even though he longed for a few unorthodox pets of his own—donkeys, goats, and pigs were on his wish list at the time—our lively blended family called for a tight rein on the expenses.
We agreed on some conditions: No more visits to Eileen. And these doves had to cozy into the chicken coop we had built for Ross’s adoptees and their offspring. For the first time, but far from the last time, Tom declared, “No new aviaries.” If we added some dove perches toward the top and enclosed some adjoining yard, the ten-by-ten-foot shelter seemed big enough for all. It would be a coop-cum-aviary. All was peaceable in that cooing, clucking kingdom until a few days later when I found a green-banded dove dead on the ground, stiff and covered with bloodied peck marks. The band was on its left foot; it was a female. I didn’t know whether the chickens had killed her or had pecked her body after she died. I had noticed when I first got the birds home that she was the only green-banded bird in my little flock.
Just days into my watch, a dove was dead. I felt terribly guilty. I wanted to give the doves back to Eileen and called to tell her so. I was crying—again—so it took a while for me to clarify the details of the tragedy.
“You put doves in with chickens?” Eileen bellowed. “What were you thinking? Doves can’t defend themselves.”
I had to face it: my mistake was as boneheaded but unintentional as Eileen’s buying the ringnecks in the first place. When emotions cooled, I had some questions for Eileen. The green-banded bird had behaved differently from the other doves from the start. It stayed separate from the others, never flew, and acted, well, disconsolate. It wouldn’t even drink from the watering station like all the other birds. What could that have been about? There was silence on the line for a moment.
“I lost a dove last night,” Eileen said quietly. “I found it dead on the floor. It had a green band, too. Right foot.”
It was a male; my bird with the green band on the left foot was a female. In her haste to net the birds, she had inadvertently separated them. Ringnecks are monogamous and they mate for life. They can mourn at the death or disappearance of a mate. Some stop eating or drinking. Could these two have perished from grief just a few miles apart? If so, it was a devotion worthy of star-crossed Shakespearean lovers. I wouldn’t let myself consider it.
I COULDN’T HAVE known it then, but pigeons and doves would prove as integral to the growth of Pandemonium as these “common” birds have been to the march of human history. I didn’t know much at all about the long and complex interrelationships between birds and humans. But I was determined that there would be no more death by ignorance in my house.
For starters, I began reading about the Columbidae family. According to BirdLife International, a global partnership of conservation groups, there are 9,934 existing bird species in the world. Few of them have a closer or richer historical connection to humans than those known as doves and pigeons. They have carried our messages, served as food, and provided fertilizer for thousands of years. They have also had a place in our amusements. Well before people began to race pigeons, they were used in ancient sporting events. The Romans employed pigeons as winged tote boards, sending them aloft from distant finish lines to report the results of chariot races. Greeks sent them into the skies to deliver the results of Olympic Games in the eighth century BC.
I had always heard about hero military dogs and warhorses, but I didn’t realize that pigeons were among the earliest animals enlisted in men’s infernal wars. That barbarian of legend Genghis Khan larded much of Asia and eastern Europe with messenger pigeon stations to stay abreast of his own conquests.
Over six hundred years later, pigeons came to the aid of Paris, carrying official dispatches across the Prussian lines during the 1870 Siege of Paris. The birds braved extreme cold, gunfire, and Prussian-trained interceptor falcons to carry the lifesaving intelligence. A grateful French nation commissioned Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi—designer of the Statue of Liberty—to sculpt a bronze monument to the heroic birds. It was erected in the place des Ternes in 1905 to commemorate the birds. (Fittingly, I suppose, the statue was melted down for munitions in World War II).
Hero carrier pigeons have been decorated by grateful armies. In World War I, a pigeon attached to the US Army Signal Corps won France’s highest military honor—the Croix de Guerre—in Verdun. Cher Ami, a homing pigeon, saved the Seventy-Seventh Infantry Division’s Lost Battalion, which was trapped in a large, trough-like depression, surrounded by German troops, and mistakenly bombarded by friendly fire. Cher Ami delivered a dozen critical messages, including this one from the doomed battalion: “We are along the road parallel 276.4. Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake stop it.”
The desperate American troops watched the bird launch himself with the message and encounter enemy fire. Cher Ami flew twenty-five miles and arrived at his coop bloodied, a bullet to his chest and one leg nearly severed. But attached to the leg was the silver message canister; the shelling stopped, the men were rescued, and 194 lives were saved. Though medics made the bird a wooden leg and the army demobilized him back to the States with a hero’s send-off, Cher Ami died of his injuries in 1919. Or perhaps Cher Ami died of her injuries. Some sources report that an autopsy revealed that the pigeon was a hen!
Pigeons were conscripted in World War II as well. You’ve heard of the famous Victory Gardens planted all over America to produce homegrown food? The US Army Signal Corps also put out a call for donated homing pigeons. Professional and backyard fanciers answered the call, and pigeon “troop strength” soared to fifty-two thousand.
Before there were lab rats, pigeons contributed to groundbreaking scientific research. The evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin was fascinated by pigeons. In 1855 he began raising specialty breeds such as pouters, fantails, short-faced tumblers, and carriers at his home in England. In his masterwork, On the Origin of the Species, he declared that “the diversity of the breeds is something astonishing.”
Darwin’
s study of pigeon genetics as a means to explore his theory of natural selection has just received an amazing update: Genome scientists are now sequencing DNA in forty pigeon breeds to study just how evolution works. Nearly 150 years later, these new genetic studies support Darwin’s contention that all pigeon breeds are descendents of the rock dove, a bird that once ranged from Asia to Europe and North Africa.
Pigeon behavior helped shape modern psychology. B. F. Skinner’s work in the field of cognitive behavior proved the power of operant conditioning by experimenting with pigeons. During World War II, Skinner also began training his lab birds to peck at silhouettes of known enemy targets intending to create — yes—the pigeon-guided missile. He whirled his feathered cadets in centrifuges, subjecting them to increased g-forces, loud noises, and flashing lights. Mercifully, for birds and humans, the project was abandoned.
I was surprised to find that military carrier pigeons were still used during the Vietnam War and that pigeons have been trained for helicopter search and rescue missions over the high seas. They have amazing visual acuity. A pigeon’s field of vision covers 340 degrees—far greater than that of humans. The bird’s small brain also processes what it sees much faster than we can. Pigeons, like horses, are also extremely sensitive to any movement in their field of vision. Given all these visual abilities, pigeons have been shown to be able to spot and react to shipwrecks from high over the seas.
As I’ve found with the many species we have rescued at Pandemonium, pigeons have been buffeted for centuries by changing human needs and desires. That includes crime. Drug traffickers still send pigeons through the impenetrable gorges between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In India, the fleets of winged message carriers indispensable to remote police stations since 1946 have been given their walking papers, rendered obsolete by the Internet.
Given this history of service, why do they get such a bum rap?
Pigeons’ noble assists to humankind make me ashamed—kind of—for having giggled at the Woody Allen line in Stardust Memories, which disrespected the ubiquitous city pigeons we’re so familiar with as “rats with wings,” dirty, messy, disease ridden. What’s in a name, if the bird is essentially the same? Doves can be “pure” soaps and premium chocolate brands. In most myth, religion, literature, and visual arts, the Columbidae family members known as doves received far gentler treatment than pigeons. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, was depicted in a chariot pulled by white doves. In Christianity, the Holy Ghost is manifested as a white dove. Early Judaism selected the most pure animals to use as sacrifices, and white doves often won that dubious distinction. In the Old Testament, Noah sent a raven from the ark during the Flood to seek dry land; the raven refused to go. Noah cursed it, then sent a dove. It flew back to the ark bearing an olive branch—land ho!
Understanding my birds’ place in human history was fun, and I still like to research all our bird species’ behavior, physiology, and interaction with humankind. But with five doves cooing in a new aviary annexed to the chicken coop with Tom’s grudging consent, I was lacking the practical knowledge to keep them alive and healthy. Until I could find some information source or mentor, the logical thing to do was to observe them closely.
The kids snickered as they saw their mother stealthily approach the dove aviary, sidle alongside, and flatten against the wire like a B-movie spy. I can tell you plenty about the courting and mating habits of libidinous ringnecks; their pairings, spats, and consummations became my afternoon soap operas. Ringneck males are hasty but considerate lovers; after mating, male and female doves tenderly groom each other by gently pulling at each other’s neck feathers.
Since there would clearly be babies to deal with, I needed some expert advice—quickly—on welcoming a new generation. Also, I was concerned about the health of some of Eileen’s doves. I was desperate for information, and the first phone call I made changed all our lives.
THREE
Bird Fever: One More Is No Big Deal
Doves are supposed to coo, but some of mine were hacking like congested old men. I needed a bird guru, and quickly. I had subscribed to the American Dove Association newsletter on the day Eileen handed it to me along with the six birds. When the first issue arrived, it included a membership directory of aviculturists. Louis Brown was a breeder whose species list was one of the longest and most exotic in the nation. He lived two hours from me. I called him.
“Yeah, this is Louis. What can I do for you? I’m kind of busy right now.”
It was a small miracle that I got his sandpaper voice on the line. Louis doesn’t answer his phone as a rule; he tends to view it as an instrument of torture on a par with thumbscrews. That day was an exception. He explained that he might have to hang up suddenly because he was expecting two important calls, one from a major zoo and the other from a fellow breeder. He was brokering a bird swap.
The call to Louis was my first exposure to the rare and idiosyncratic human specimens working in aviculture. The trade he was brokering was a triple play based on a complex system of avian chits. Louis explained that he would be sending a female Victoria crowned pigeon to a zoo that needed one. The zoo would be reclassifying a rare male African hornbill as “surplus” and sending it to a breeder who had a single female African hornbill in need of a mate. This breeder would in turn transfer two pairs of green-naped pheasant pigeons to Louis, who wanted them—badly. At the end of the day, the three parties would get what they needed, and no money would have exchanged hands.
Welcome to the bird bazaar, the type of arcane, sub-rosa marketplace that develops around cat fanciers, exotic-reptile breeders, and those besotted “orchid thieves” of book and film. Louis’s level of high-stakes avian poker is fraught with feints, bluffs, and some undisguised pleading. The currency may include IOUs drawn on generations of rare birds yet unborn. Conservationists and collectors may have different motivations, but they all possess a certain crafty zeal for procuring what they desire. Louis described the acquisitive itch as “bird fever” and I hoped it wasn’t catching. All I knew at the moment was that this guy was a master breeder. If zoos were vying for his birds, he must be able to help a humble backyard dove keeper. I’m sure that Louis could hear my anxiety over the line as I described the doves’ persistent cough.
“Hoo boy, not good,” Louis warned. “Could be contagious. Could be serious. Hard to fix. Should start treating ’em right away, nip the thing in the bud before all your birds get sick. I have some meds here that could work, but it’s breeding season. I can’t have you up here. I’ll give you the phone number to order some. I’d show you how to give the pills, but nope, sorry . . . no one can come up when we’re nesting here.”
He described a marathon of round-the-clock vigilance overseeing the next crop of rare hatchlings. There were nest boxes to check, eggs to warm and “candle” (hold up to a light source) to see the activity within, and dozens of tiny, helpless babies to hand-feed with droppers and miniature shot glasses. Though disappointed, I was ready to say good-bye politely when I mentioned that we were headed toward his area to take our middle son, Jason, to camp.
“Holy cow, that camp is just down the road from me,” Louis said. “I used to deliver hay there. Come on over.”
I’d soon learn that Louis was as mercurial as he was kind. I decided to get up there before he changed his mind again. We left the two boys and Lizzy with a sitter. As we piled Jason, his camp gear, and a coffee cake for the Browns into the car for the drive north, I had no expectations beyond a quick stop for some information after the camp drop-off.
“Ten minutes, max,” I promised Tom. How long could it take to learn to dose a dove?
THE BROWNS LIVE at the end of a quiet street in a semirural area an hour northeast of San Francisco. Their grounds are concealed by tall pampas grass along the perimeter. Peek over the chain-link gate across the driveway and you get the first clue that the small, weathered ranch house is no ordinary home. There are geese and pheasants in the front yard, and the entire garden is
netted.
Carol met us at the door dressed in jeans and a turtleneck—her basic uniform, I’d later learn. She struck me as a leaner version of Mrs. Santa Claus, with short wavy silver hair, soft eyes, and the most genuine of smiles. Louis stood behind her in overalls, an old T-shirt, and the sort of wide black safety belt worn by weight lifters. His hair was long; his stubble, some days old. Caring for over a thousand birds is dirty, heavy work, and the years have taken a toll: Louis has a litany of ailments, and Carol leans on a cane to favor what she calls “this darn hip.” For me, it was as fateful a moment as cradling the dove on the highway—but with much happier results. I had just met my teachers, confessors, procurers, and dear friends for life.
“You’re gonna see birds that will knock your socks off,” Louis announced.
He led Tom and me through a heavy metal door that clanged shut behind us. We both gasped. It was like the moment Dorothy steps out of Auntie Em’s house in Oz and the scene changes suddenly to dazzling color. For over two hours, we ogled the Browns’ sublime creatures as they went about their day, strutting, flapping, roosting, nesting, preening. The aviaries themselves were the plainest of settings for the jewel-toned treasures within. Louis is a frugal, practical sort, who “makes do” with bits of wire, corrugated metal roofing, rewired incubators, and repurposed orange crates. Magnificent Chinese golden pheasants with deep orange capes fairly glowed through pedestrian chicken wire. The effect was part Xanadu, part Dogpatch. We were utterly entranced.
We followed Louis down an aisle beneath rows of skylights. There were antic, meowing owl finches and chartreuse Guinea turacos from Africa, emerald doves and plum-headed parakeets from India. The bleeding-heart doves from the Philippines looked dramatically wounded with a convincing splotch of red feathers midbreast. We moved on to Australian crested doves, lorikeets, and rosellas from Australia. They ranged in size from two-inch finches to pheasants with five-foot tails. I nearly swooned when a dun-colored gray peacock-pheasant greeted Louis’s approach by spreading its tail into an upright fan studded with circular patterns that glowed iridescent, like so many metallic eyes, blazing as the sun touched them.
The Birds of Pandemonium Page 4
