Who are you Looking At?

Alan was getting ready for work in the bathroom while I was still in bed, and he came back in the bedroom and asked where my camera was - it was downstairs, so he took my phone.  I had no idea what he was taking a photo of, but it turned out to be a pigeon in the paddling pool.

When I went downstairs, over an hour later, it was still there, sat on a bucket! Scarlett came out with the boys, and it didn't flinch, even when Bobbie barked at it, so I went and got my camera and it posed nicely for us.

I tried prodding it with the fishing net to get it to fly, but it just flapped it's wings and at first I was worried that it was injured, but I noticed it had rings on it's legs so assumed it was a homing pigeon. I did a google search to find out how I could identify whose bird it was,  and it said there should be one ring with an ID code on it, and another with a special timing code if it was a racing pigeon.  It also said to look under it's wings as the owner may have their phone number somewhere.  

I tried taking a photo of it's rings but it was too difficult, particularly as it was stood in the water, so I carefully put my hands out and started to stroke it, before attempting to pick it up.  It was very calm and sat in my hands, so I shouted to Rachel to come and make a note of the numbers as I read them out.  The first tag was it's ID, and the second tag turned out to be a local telephone number, so I called and a man answered.  I asked if he'd lost a pigeon and he said that he had and that she's one of his main breeding birds who'd escaped last night.  I explained how we'd found her, and he said she'd not got very far as he lives in the same village, and said he'd come straight round for her. Rachel got the pet carrier out of the garage and we put the bird in there until he arrived.  

He said that he was hoping she'd returned by the morning, but of course she hadn't, so he was going to let his other birds out for a fly in the hope that she was sat on a roof somewhere and would see them and return home, but thought she'd gone for good.  He asked if he could give us a reward and I said it wasn't necessary, but he insisted on giving us £10 to treat the girls which was nice of him, and then told us she was worth £500!

Other than that bit of excitement, we've not actually done very much today.  Scarlett came with me to take the boys for a walk, and then we collected some blackberries from our bushes, had lunch in the garden and then went to Toys R Us so the girls could spend their money.  
We enjoyed a nice couple of hours in the garden before dinner, it's just a shame they couldn't use the paddling pool as it was really warm, but after this morning's episode, it needs cleaning out!