The unexpectedly colourful pigeon encountered
and photographed at Mijas, Spain, by Steve Mandell (© Steve Mandell)
This latest ShukerNature blog article of mine has a
twofold mission – not only to entertain and educate (just like I hope that all
of my articles do) but also to assist if at all possible in reuniting its poor
lost subject with its owner.
On 19 February 2018, Paul Sieveking at Fortean Times forwarded
to me for my thoughts a very interesting email that he had received earlier
that same day from FT reader Steve Mandell, concerning a most unusual multicoloured
pigeon that he had seen during the Spanish holiday from which he and his family
had just returned home. Steve also attached two excellent close-up colour photographs
of the pigeon in question, and as soon as I saw them I knew the precise nature
of their subject. Consequently, I sent details concerning this to Paul, and I also
contacted Steve, enclosing in my email to him not only the same details but
also a request for permission to document this very interesting case here on
ShukerNature and to include in it his two photos. Steve very kindly agreed to
my request, so here is the remarkable story behind that equally remarkable
pigeon.
Hailing from East Sussex, England, Steve revealed in his email that he and his
family had been holidaying at Benalmadena on Spain's Costa
del Sol when:
During our stay, we all went on a day
trip to the nearby mountain village of Mijas. After a browse around their
rather quirky Museum of Miniatures, we took a stroll around the beautiful
Parque la Muralla which edges the cliff faces.
We turned a corner to look into a deep
gorge where several feral pigeons were basking in the early spring sunshine.
Then I noticed, sitting all alone, a pigeon with markings that could only be
described as parrot-like. It took me a while to believe what my eyes were
seeing as this bird could only be described as a pigeon/parrot hybrid. I have
enclosed 2 photos for you and your readers' perusal.
On the bus trip
back down to the coast I searched the internet but could only find a story from
Queens, NY, which seems to be a hoax and doesn't resemble what I saw…
If anyone can shed some light on what
this creature is, I'd be most grateful. If not, I'm laying claim to the
discovery of a new species.
Sadly for Steve, what
he saw was nothing so ornithologically exciting as either a new species or a
pigeon x parrot hybrid, but it is still very interesting, and surprisingly
little-known outside Spain. Fortunately, however, I had read about such birds a
fair while ago, and therefore knew its secret. It was a domestic racing pigeon,
and not some highly-specialised, dramatically-plumed breed either, just a
totally standard specimen, but with one significant, peculiarly Spanish variation
upon the typical racing pigeon theme.
Steve's
second photograph of the gaudy-plumed pigeon that he encountered at Mijas,
Spain (© Steve Mandell)
In Murcia and
Valencia, there is a longstanding tradition among the racing pigeon fraternity
for breeders to paint their pigeons in rainbow hues and then release them to
pursue a single female pigeon. Whichever male bird stays with the female the
longest wins the competition. Each breeder paints his pigeons in different
colour complements from those of all other breeders, so the breeders can
readily follow their own birds by eye, and rescue them if they should become entangled
in foliage, etc. Champion pigeons in this sport are greatly valued, because
they bestow immense prestige upon their owners.
So captivated by these
varicoloured pigeons, their driven owners, and the whole intense culture
surrounding them was photographer Ricardo Cases that in 2011 he published a
limited-edition photobook entitled Paloma al Aire ('Pigeon in the Air'),
filled with stunning colour photos of the birds and their owners, and which
attracted considerable attention later that same year at the Arles photography
festival (click here
to read an article concerning Cases's book, and here
to see a selection of spectacular photographs from it). Indeed, so popular did
it prove that in 2014, Cases published a second edition.
Nor are photographs of
these Spanish painted pigeons confined to Cases's photobooks. Scouring the internet,
I soon found various other photos, including one of a green-winged individual that
had been snapped at Bocairent in Valencia but which was extremely similar to
the one encountered by Steve in Mijas (click here
to
view this Valencia specimen) – so much so, in fact, that both birds very likely
belonged to the same breeder. Another painted pigeon from the same location in Valencia
that I found a photograph of was one with bright orange wings (click here to
view it).
(Incidentally, back in
August 2012 the famous feral pigeons of St Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, were
similarly airbrushed in a polychromatic palette of garish hues by Swiss artist Julian
Charrière and German artist Julius von Bismarck, as part of a one-off performance
for the architecture Biennale exhibition – click here
for details.)
A
typical unpainted feral pigeon (© )
Clearly, therefore,
the parrot-plumed pigeon sighted and photographed by Steve was one such Spanish
racing bird, but, tragically, it had not found its way back home to its owner. Instead,
it was lost, adrift and alone in Mijas, and, as a domestic racing pigeon rather
than a feral urban pigeon, had evidently been unable to assimilate with the
latter birds, thus explaining its solitary, set-apart existence when seen by
Steve.
So this is where you,
gentle readers, come in. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this poor stray pigeon
could be reunited with its owner? Perhaps it can. If everyone reading this
article SHARES it with friends, colleagues, and groups (not just Likes it), so that it circulates
far and wide on social media sites, and receives a high placement in search
engine listings, then maybe it will be seen by someone who recognises this distinctively-painted
pigeon and/or knows its owner and can inform him accordingly of the pigeon's current
presence in Mijas – maybe it will even be seen directly by the pigeon's owner himself
– who would then be in a position to visit Mijas and seek out his missing bird.
True, I know that it is
a long shot, but sometimes long shots are successful, and we all know that
remarkable successes have certainly been achieved when the power of social
media has been harnessed and mobilised.
So, please, do what
you can to help this lost pigeon find its way home – after all, not all
miracles are big, some are small, but are just as wonderful if they happen, and
who knows, this one just might. Thank you all most sincerely for any assistance
that you can offer, and thanks again to Steve Mandell for so kindly making this
case and his photos available to me for documentation here.
Close-ups of Steve
Mandell's two photographs of the lost painted racing pigeon that he saw in
Mijas, Spain, during February 2018, and which urgently needs and deserves our
help to bring it back home (© Steve Mandell)
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