Where do they all come from?

People are always suprised to learn how many birds Palomacy cares for and we are frequently asked, Where do they all come from? Little Glory is a juvenile feral pigeon who was found June 4th on a busy city sidewalk by kind passerby Jennie. Too young to be out of the nest and unable to even stand up let alone walk due to a splayed leg and a curled foot, Glory was extremely lucky Jennie rescued her. But where would she go?

Glory wouldn’t be releasable so going to wildlife rescue would mean euthanasia. Jennie wasn’t in a position to keep her and animal shelters euthanize rather than treat disabled pigeons. Which, in some ways, all makes sense. This little pigeon child was deformed and would be unable to survive in the wild. All roads seemed to lead her to death. Except that Palomacy didn’t say no. We said yes. She was bright-eyed, feisty and full of life. Jennie had rescued her and that gave her a rare opportunity. We know how to help birds like Glory. And so we are. It’s probably not the sensible choice. We are already beyond full with more than 150 birds in our foster care and struggling financially with our expenses exceeding our donations. And Glory’s condition required surgery that, even with an extremely generous rescue discount, is costly.

So why do it? Why say yes to saving a little pigeon child?

Pigeon Child

When Jennie and Jesse arrived with the little nestling they were calling Bird, she was defiant and wild. Usually baby pigeons are very trusting and quick to accept you as their strange new parent bird but not this one. She didn’t trust me one bit and saw no reason to tolerate my attention. She refused sips of water and was totally unimpressed by my hand feeding her. I on the other hand was impressed with her strength and courage.

The next day I took her to see Dr. Speer at Medical Center for Birds and he too was impressed with her toughness. She was wild and did not accept being handled the way so many pigeons do. He was also impressed with the 120 degree rotation of her leg that, even so, folded perfectly and was ideal for corrective surgery. Her derotational osteotomy would mean her leg would be surgically broken, rotated into the proper alignment and a stainless steel pin inserted into the bone shaft lengthwise to stabilize during recovery. And her newly arranged feet would be taped to a snowboard style fixator to position both legs correctly. It’s not an easy recovery and we needed little Glory’s trust and cooperation to make it work. So I took her back home with me for a week to try and win her over. Cue awkward, happy making friends montage.

        

Treatment

It worked. After a week of hanging out together, with lots of snuggles and reassurance, Glory was comfortable with people and ready. She was hospitalized and Dr. Speer did her surgery on June 12. She woke up tall! Standing up off her tummy and on her feet for the first time.

Pigeons are incredibly tolerant and resilient. Despite the pain of a broken, stretched and pinned leg and the confusing awkwardness of having both feet taped to a tongue depressor, Glory wrangled her new stance with enviable grace. She learned that she could now not only sit but also stand and within a couple of days, she was mobile- able to hop and then, on June 25th, fly! It was thrilling to see her standing up to eat let alone hop around to explore and show off those big albatross wings and fly! Pigeons can, with the right care and support, live happy lives without being able to use their legs (see Violet’s story & River’s story for a couple of examples), but it is very moving to see someone become more fully themselves, given the chance.

Glory’s recovery has gone well, no complications. She was promoted from snowboard fixator to a hobble on June 21 and the stainless steel pin was removed on June 25. Now that she is doing so well in just a minimal hobble, able to walk, stand on one foot, scratch, etc. we’re looking at the curled foot on her “good leg” to see if a soft tape ‘shoe’ might help to stretch and improve the positioning of those toes.

 

The Life Ahead

Glory will never be releasable. She’s too tame and she needs to continue wearing a hobble for quite awhile yet- to further strengthen her underdeveloped muscles. She may even need to be rehobbled periodically throughout her life if her leg bows out as sometimes happens with splay-survivors. So what’s the point? This young pigeon, misformed and unable to survive naturally, could have been left on that sidewalk for “nature to take its course”. She would likely have been a good meal for a hawk or raven and their own young. Many pigeon fledglings are. Or she could have been spared the violence and suffering of that and been humanely killed at a pigeon-friendly wildlife rescue. Instead, she’ll live. We, this community called Palomacy, have come together to help her. Does it matter? I would argue that it does. Glory’s life matters to her. It is the only thing in this whole world that she has. And she embodies it fully! Snuggling and exploring, making friends and evading bossy birds, napping in my hand, lounging in the sun, scattering seeds all over and still peeping with baby bird enthusiasm as she eats. Why help this little bird to live when there are so many ways to let her die? Why do YOU help Palomacy to do this special work? Perhaps through helping her, we are helping everyone. Perhaps we are placing our feet, one after the other, on the long road to peace. One tiny, tiny step on such an unimaginably long journey. What difference does helping Glory make? Perhaps the only reason we need to help someone is that we can.