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

The sad story of Belmondo

Jozef a cock like the unfortunate Belmondo

Surprises necessarily aren’t always equally pleasant. This isn’t a story concerning a well known French movie star but it will tell us the adventures of an unlucky pigeon. During the making of an interview I once met a fancier who was extremely successful with his pigeons.. He had given his flying heroes Italian sounding names like Orlando, Amora, Dorabella, and…… Don Corleone! What’s in a name!

Some time afterwards I visited a pigeon auction attended by very  few buyers. For the small amount of 35 euros I purchased a promising young dark Van der Wegen cock. 

And as I suddenly remembered those Italian baptized racing pigeons I consequently called my new recruit Belmondo Maybe the bird was going to fulfil the promises of its wonderful pedigree and romantic name.

Two years afterwards  one evening there was a phone call from Baarn. It was somewhere in the middle of august. 

A young lad with a soprano voice said:’ Sir, I’ve got here one of your pigeons. It is number 26.’ 

I was glad to hear that it was my favourite twenty-six, a young chequers hen. I had lost her a fortnight earlier racing from Morlincourt in France. The flying conditions were difficult; it had been a hot day with a dry wind blowing from the east. Up till then the chequers 26 had been  the first arrival at my loft four times; a promising result.

However the caller killed my joy in telling me: ’She ‘s dead , Sir. Last night we had a cloud burst here. There was blowing halve a gale. Your bird must have come into collision with our Farmhouse. After the heavy rainfall she was lying somewhere in the puddles on our yard.’

I said that I wanted to come and get my pigeon the next day anyway. The  young Soprano told he lived somewhere on the river Eems in the polder land of Baarn.

’I have  to attend school on Monday, Sir, but my father and Granddad won’t be far off. Really Sir, don’t bother to come,’ he resumed, ’ but it’s better for you when I throw that pigeon in the trash can. It  will never ever fly again. It ‘s as dead as a doornail, ’he joked. 

driving along the winding river Eem

But I persisted in bringing home my pitiful pigeon. ’ It was nice of you to call me, ’I said, ’now at least  I know what happened to  one of my stray birds.'
 

The next Monday morning, after having lost my way a couple of times I finally found the  little farm near the  winding river. 

The farmer who was just driving about with his tractor  between his dilapidated barns shouted and pointed out: ‘ Oh you must come for that stupid pigeon, over there near the backyard door.’ 

I  hesitated and slowly walked in the indicated direction; and there in a plastic bag that once contained fertilizers was the skeleton of my 26, she spread an abominable smell. That indeed  was an unexpected surprise . No feather neither any meat was left on the  bones. 

An inspection of the number on the pigeon’s  ring gave me the second shock. It wasn’t at all my dear  promising blue chequers twenty six. 

Those remains weren’t hers. The skeleton belonged tot the 62, my Belmondo, the dark cock that  I sent on a long-distance race from Bergerac three weeks before.

My telephone boy with his cracking voice had sardonically said something like’ Sir, I think, she possibly collided with an object during the heavy showers.’ He was a nice one! Moreover he had been mixing up the numbers.

The tower of the city of Amersfoort nicknamed' Long John

The busy farmer now descended from his tractor, but kept the engine running. He said: ’Some bird of prey greedily consumed that pigeon. She must have been washed away from the gutter of the house last night during  that thunderstorm. She won’t be of any use to you in that condition.’ He shook his head and resumed his work.

Now suddenly Granddad emerged from the back of the farmhouse. He badly wanted  a chat. ‘These pigeon are they expensive,’ he asked. ‘People tell you can earn quite a lot racing them birds.’

“What’s the value of your cows,’ I answered bitterly smiling.

‘Well’, he replied ignoring my annoyance, ‘If they produce enough milk, when they have a good pedigree and are winning prizes on a cattle show, then you can receive quite an amount of money. Then your cows get ribbons and every now and then you may win a challenge cup.

I threw the bag with Belmondo’s bones into the boot of my car, said Granddad goodbye and drove away.

In the hazy and sunny  distance I saw Amersfoort’s Long John.  Perhaps my unlucky pigeon had also seen that tower and yet he had lost his bearings in sight of the harbour. 

And so day dreaming  I again lost my way in the lovely land between Baarn and my hometown. Belmondo: of course, that meant beautiful world.

c.u.
Kijk voor de nederlandse versie bij onderstaande link 
http://binnenpark.blogspot.com/2011/03/het-trieste-einde-van-de-duif-belmondo.html