White-crowned pigeon makes rare appearance in Galveston
Like Dorothy and Toto from “The Wizard of Oz,” a native Caribbean bird may have been whirled up in one of this year’s tropical hurricanes and carried ashore onto Galveston Island.
The bird was a whitecrowned pigeon native to southernmost Florida, the Caribbean and the Caribbean coast of Mexico and Central America. Because the bird’s slate-gray color resembles that of a rock pigeon, it could have gone unnoticed until it slammed into a window at a service station on Ferry Road during the first week of October.
But who’d care about a pigeon? Phillip Nevelow cared when his girlfriend spotted the bird flopping on the ground.
“I picked it up and noticed that its wing was hurt,” he said, “So I got a box from inside the store and called Animal Control. I really like birds, and I thought it was hurt and didn’t want to see a cat or something get it.”
An Animal Control officer took the injured bird to the Galveston Humane Society where, on Oct. 10, a volunteer with the Galveston Bay Injured Bird Response Team transported the bird some 60-miles to Houston’s Wildlife Center of Texas, where it could be rehabilitated.
Executive director of the Wildlife Center Sharon Schmalz and her staff identified the bird as a white-crowned pigeon and began working to heal it. By Oct. 19, the bird was standing, eating blueberries and gaining weight.
“Hopefully, we’ll get him out in the wild,” she said. “If not, we’ll find a zoo or somewhere where we can place him for education.”
It’s not certain that the bird rode hurricane winds to Galveston. But it’s a good guess, based on the recent cyclones that
swirled through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
Yet the bird could have followed barrier islands along the Gulf Coast to Galveston because whitecrowned pigeons often island hop in the Caribbean. Maybe it hitched a ride on a ship or flew up from Cozumel, Mexico.
A clue to the bird’s origin may come from DNA analysis of its shredded feathers. Whatever the case, the bird represents the only documented presence of a white-crowned pigeon in Texas.
In the end, though, the tale of the displaced pigeon is a story about the goodness of people.
“What are the chances of a bird making it through a hurricane, landing in Galveston, weeks later running into a window, being rescued? said my friend Stennie Meadours. “Impossible, without a caring citizen, a responsive Animal Control unit and volunteer transport team.”