CBNews to the rescue
Disorientated racing pigeon found outside our head office is safely returned to its Ibiza owner
LAST Wednesday, our head office in Finestrat had an unusual visitor, in the form of a very sleek-looking grey and white pigeon, which was found sitting outside the main door, looking rather sorry for itself.
Our capable bird expert colleague, Bonnie, immediately came to its rescue, placing it in a cardboard box. As the bird was ringed, the Guardia Civil were contacted and they provided us with a contact number for a bird rescue centre.
On phoning the rescue centre, we discovered that they don't give assistance to tame birds, especially not pigeons.
However, the man was kind enough to explain how to read the pigeon's ring; this is when we saw, with the help of a magnifying glass... ESP Baleares 2017 and then the number 4888. He told us it was a racing pigeon from the Balearic Islands, and gave us the webpage for the Balearic Island racing pigeon federation.
Some more investigating provided us with the information that the bird came from Ibiza, so we phoned a mobile number from the site, which was the contact for the president, who promised that the owner would phone us.
Phone us indeed he did, and a happy man he was as well. He thanked us profusely and asked us to hold on to the bird until Saturday, as one of his trucks was releasing birds on a training run, and 4888, as we called the pigeon, would be collected by Antonio the driver.
More perusal of the website provided the interesting information that during the winter, on most weekends, these birds are trucked over from Ibiza and Mallorca, and released from Villajoyosa and Llorca in Murcia, sometimes even in Marbella.
Arrangements were made with Antonio to collect 4888 from near the Benidorm motor- way exit.
Meanwhile, 4888 spent three days at Bonnie’s home, where it devoured its meals. It had obviously spent a few days hungry.
On the Saturday, Antonio, who could easily have been a movie star, turned up with a large truck full of racing pigeons. He provided Bonnie with some fascinating details about the pigeons, including that an Ibiza pigeon released from Marbella broke all speed records, flying back to home in 6.5 hours, which worked out that it flew at more than 100 kph.
The most successful ones could be worth as much at €50,000. 4888 wasn't in this league as it was only a young bird born in 2017, which had presumably gone AWOL on one of the regular training flights they carry out, either due to inexperience, or it could have been targeted by a bird of prey.
Birds on training runs only have one ring, while birds in an actual race have two rings; the extra one is the timing ring.
4888 got back safely by truck to its Ibiza dove cot, which was not exactly small, as we were able to see from photos we were sent by his grateful owner.