As green as grass

the sueltas from Spain

When I came home from school one tropical afternoon I discovered a green pigeon. It was quietly sitting on my very own loft. I was flabbergasted and couldn’t believe my eyes. For a single moment I was of the world. No doubt it was the heat for generally I don’t see lions on my way. The pigeon was poison green. It was about to enter the young pigeons house when I learned from its blue ring that it had to be one of my own birds. It was the 53.

In the fall of ’93 I gave her to Peter, a friendly pigeon fancier. I looked for further details in my computer. Peter was crazy about black and snow white pigeons; consequently his nickname had to be White Peter. However after a while Peter moved to another part of the town and he sold his black and white friends to what you might call an unknown  pigeon buyer-up.

I went to my neighbour who was mowing his grass and showed him my green miracle.

‘Where did you find that he asked. Such birds should be in Disneyland or belong to some fun-fair.’ ‘It’s one of my own’, I said, ’ last year I sold her to Peter.’

’I bet you’ve painted her all by yourself’, he laughed and returned to his lawnmower. I took my 53 to a little pigeon apartment for stray birds in my garage for she didn’t seem to be quite healthy.

Then I phoned John, the chairman of our pigeon club. ‘John’, I  said, ’I’ve got a green pigeon.’

‘Of course old chap, I understand, It’s rather hot today . You’ve lost your head. The children at school must have been a nuisance. You are referring to the green badge, I suppose. Keep your heart; the summer holidays are near at hand.’

‘No, no, I am serious, John boy, it’s a white pigeon that someone  painted green. Sometimes you meet with these coloured painted birds as an attraction in a fun fair or a children’s zoo.’

And John as leader of the pigeons society started to behave as a leader suits. He was wondering which idiot could have been responsible for the green affair. ‘Maybe it’s someone who likes to play  practical jokes,’ he said and he promised to start an investigation,

After our phone call in a twinkling of an eye me and my pigeon bird became the talk of the town. The reactions were different. ‘How could anyone possibly remove that paint’, somebody worried. ‘With white spirit,’ Anthony proposed. He is the eldest club member, so he ought to know better.

 ‘You’re mad, ’I grumbled,’ after moulting time my pigeon will be white again. She already threw  three flights.’

‘You could send her on the next race from France,’ suggested Bill Bully. He was often nagging and teasing his fellow pigeon people.

Of course his proposition was not real because we were racing from Creil on Saturday  and that was more than 230 miles  and the green one wasn’t properly trained and prepared. It had already been quite a performance for a tainted bird like her to fly safely home from wherever it came from.

The pigeon owners of Northern Holland had been flying from Kaatsheuvel last weekend and in that region their must be a fun-fair somewhere.

My next-door neighbour and former pigeon keeper, the one with the noisy lawnmower wanted to know if my other pigeons were not afraid of their new green loft mate. ‘Jacob ‘, I said they don’t even notice her outfit, they don’t see colours at all I think.’ And then we were arguing for quite a while whether birds could see colours.

Now  already during a few weeks the 53 has joined my flight of pigeons and the children from next door are shouting:’ See, there is flying a green one amongst these pigeons.

In between I’ve given my prodigious pigeon daughter a cock pigeon  to mate. It was love at first sight and the first egg, I can assure you, definitely wasn’t green at all.

© Cor Uitham 
nederlandse versie http://duivenpad.blogspot.nl/2011/10/zo-groen-als-gras.html       

The Sueltas in Spain are painted for  a different reason. One might think that the jolly coat was applied to frighten birds of prey, but that's not the case. In Spain they organize a  special game with these Pica- pigeons. The paint is quite harmless