The Jerseys of Late

Good day,

Just stopping in to talk about the Jersey Pigeons that so many have taken a fondness to.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of good to tell you at the moment.

For starts, Jersey One, has been MIA for about 2 weeks now.

I'm hoping he's just off with another part of the folk somewhere in the area.  I can't say Jersey One is my favorite of the pair but he is the kinder one, spending more time with me during visits, hanging out on my hand.

As for Jersey Two, well, he's at Toronto Wildlife.  He's been there since April 21st.

About a month ago I was feeding them and I noticed that wet look about him.  He smelled pretty bad too.  I couldn't quite nail it but it's something like old vegetable oil.  I can only wonder what he got himself into.

I made contact with TWC regarding him.  It was advised that if I could catch him, to bring him in (with advance notice of course) and they would most likely be able to clean him up.  It took a while to do this because either his timing was off, not arriving until too close to work time, or he got away from one of my few failed attempts; and with Angie's broken foot troubles we had been to a number of doctor appointments through the weeks and I've not been around or too consumed with my own life.

The fact he was still able to fly well and in every other way was a perfectly healthy Pigeon, I wasn't overly concerned.  I knew in time I would be able to get him.

Actually, the story of my grabbing him is kind of funny.  Believe it or not I had the assistance of Pierre.  That Friday morning Pierre is waiting outside the back door.  In comes Jersey Two.  The day before we had a really cool rainy day and I knew my bird pals were quite hungry.  Jersey had no patience on waiting for Pierre (King Bird) to finish up and he flew to my left forearm...  Pierre is feeding from my left hand.  The birds got into quite the coo coo cooing argument right there and next thing I know they are getting aggressive with each other.  They are biting at each other and wings are flapping, whacking each other.  I knew with his distraction to the fray, that this was my chance.  A quick grab with my right hand and I had him in that bander's grip I mentioned in my Pierre and TWC blog a couple months ago.  Jersey Two quickly submitted, probably very confused to what was going on, why his human friend was doing this to him.

It was a bit of a wait before we hit the road to the centre.  I wanted to wait for morning rush hour to die off.  I figured no sense in us sitting in traffic, crawling the roads; better off to keep him in a dark quiet spot at home until it was time to leave and have half the drive time.

He was a little restless during the drive.  I spoke softly to him.  I don't think it had the same effect with him as it did with Pierre.  This bird has only befriended me in the last 7 months; it's going on 5 years with Pierre.  But overall he was pretty good about the confined road trip.

I dropped him off and now it's a matter of waiting, hoping he comes home sooner than later.

And I've got just as much hope that his side kick comes back too...  sooner than later.

They've been such a joy to have around as you can see.

That's the thing with wildlife, we don't always know what happens to them.  I know someone else out there is befriending them, probably getting the ball rolling on these birds having trust in people.  It's funny when new birds fly in and jump right on me, being like "what up dude?"  I love them all but no way they can sense it just like that now.

Please wish the best for both of them.