Guest Post by Andrea Crebassa

Once upon a time, but not really that long ago… five white King pigeons escaped the butcher.

Somehow, they safely made it to, of all places, an auto body repair shop.  When employees arrived, what to their wondering eyes should appear, but five white “doves” on top of one of the totaled cars in the back of the lot. Now, for a body shop, birds are not a good thing to have around because they poop on cars!  And bird poop is known for ruining car paint.

So, one of the technicians waved his arms to shoo the birds away.  Slowly, they did finally move, fluttering their beautiful white wings a bit… but landed on the ground and went under the car.  An office employee saw all of this and realized this was not normal behavior for wild birds.

Within a day or two, she started bringing food and water for the “doves,” who each day could be found in their safe space under the car.  Unfortunately, after weekends, lots of poop could also be found on the three totaled cars in the back.  The rest of the cars were always parked inside the shop overnight and weekends. She was starting to get pressure to stop encouraging the birds to be anywhere near the shop.  As in:  don’t feed or water them, shoo them away, etc.

But the employee now knew that the birds were at least partially domesticated or they wouldn’t keep staying there.  That employee was me, so I will now finish the story in the first person.

I called the Humane Society and asked if anyone had reported five missing white doves.  I swear she kind of laughed, but she said she would post a notice that five had been found.

Then I called Wildcare in San Rafael that helps all kinds of animals. I missed the first return call from them, so left messages but when we connected, they couldn’t help.  They did tell me I should call a pigeon rescue organization named Palomacy.

In the meantime, the owner of their “home” came to remove her personal items in preparation for her car being towed away.  I pointed out the doves and told her how we’d found them.  She was absolutely thrilled (although her car was covered in you-know-what), since the car had belonged to her mother who had passed some time ago. She saw it as a sign from or about her mother.

A day later that car got towed away — so the birds moved next door underneath another total.

But now, about a week after my first phone call to get help, I had a hard deadline for removing the birds. It was Monday, and on Friday the landlord was getting the parking lot re-surfaced. We needed to move all cars into our shop by end of the work day on Thursday. I was now starting to get frantic.

I called Palomacy and left a message. The next day, I got a call back from the Pigeon Queen herself, Elizabeth. She tried to refer me to the San Rafael organization. I told her they’d already said they couldn’t help me.  I also told her about the Thursday deadline.  Elizabeth sprang into action.

She had me text her photos. She told me they were King Pigeons, and were indeed domesticated:  bred for meat and therefore not good fliers, and bred to be white. And that they were maybe  six weeks old.  They would not survive long in “the wild.”  She was surprised they’d survived so far.  Sooo many predators.

Elizabeth said we’d need to trap them for any kind of rescue. I had neither the knowledge nor means to do that. On Wednesday, she set up a volunteer to help. Unfortunately, I was already on my way home to Petaluma with hubby when I got the text that Tim would be coming with a dog cage. Valiant Tim tried for over 2 hours — actually had 4 in the cage when they got spooked, and then there were none.

Elizabeth and Tim kept me apprised of all the goings-on via text.  It was so sad for human and birds that it didn’t work out.  But the next morning, I put the food and water dishes back in the cage and waited.  Since now the birds were hungry and thirsty (and a bit used to the cage?), I felt more confident I could trap them.  And within 15 minutes, all five went in the cage and I quickly closed the door! Woo hoo! What a relief!

It was now D-Day.  The Pigeon Queen had arranged for another volunteer, Jerri, to pick them up and transport them to foster at Sindy and Steve’s in Benicia. Jerri probably added at least two hours to her trip by coming to the shop. Later that afternoon, Jerri arrived and she and I took the cage full of scared pigeons into the bathroom. Jerri had to practically crawl into the cage to grab them one by one, and we put them into individual cardboard carriers. Some of the pigeons squeaked in fear or anxiety during and after the transfer. But we knew they were going to a safe, wonderful, new home.

All the cars were now moved into the shop garage.  Early the next morning, the re-surface folks arrived.  I sent Elizabeth a picture of the re-surface vehicle finishing up in our now empty lot.

Later, she sent Jerri’s photo of the five in their new, roomy aviary.  I was so grateful for that.

From start to finish, everybody at Palomacy could not have been kinder, more helpful, educational, gracious, and wonderfully communicative!  I cannot imagine what the fate of “The Auto Body Shop 5” (Elizabeth’s moniker for them) would have been without Palomacy.

All Hail the Pigeon Queen (MY moniker for Elizabeth) and all her “subjects”!

And five sweet pigeons lived happily ever after… (and are adoptable)!

These beautiful birds need new foster or forever homes before June 30, 2021. Please apply to help them (and we’ll help you).