HOBBIES
Coming
HOME A P.E.I. writer shares the joys and fears of raising pigeons WORDS AND PHOTOS BY DAVE ATKINSON
I
stood at my back door in Charlottetown, scanning the horizon. It was about an hour before sunset. “Any sign of them yet?” asked my daughter Alice. She’s 11. “Not yet,” I said. “They’ll be back soon. Just watch.” “You’re sure?” she said. Her forehead was scrunched. She was worried. “Of course I’m sure.” I put my arm around her. “They’re homing pigeons. They come home. It’s what they do.”
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I’ve been interested in pigeons for years, but it wasn’t until last year I finally built a loft. We brought in our first birds from a fellow in Bonshaw, P.E.I. The kids named them Hermes and Violet. They’re racing homers specially bred for their ability to come home from a distance, even if they’ve never seen their starting point. In some races, birds travel up to 2,000 km. “That’s the miracle of pigeons,” said Barry McPhee, a longtime pigeon fancier in Sussex, N.B. Barry has kept pigeons since 1967, after he met some on a school field trip to a local farm. By summer, he built his own loft. He’s been flying them ever since.
SPRING 2020
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