Bye bye birdie: Homing pigeon finds B&B in Grantham
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on August 29, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Clark Bennett talks about the homing pigeon that he calls Birdie that he found near his home in Grantham. Bennett made contact with the bird's owner, who lives in Chesapeake, Virginia.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Birdie looks up from her cage, one eye missing from an unknown incident along her journey. Bennett fashioned her a "condo" from a borrowed dog cage, tobacco sticks and a few fish aquarium decorations.
Full SizeA homing pigeon with Virginia roots made a recent stopover on a Grantham farm where resident Clark Bennett extended her some southern hospitality.
Bennett recalled sitting out on his back porch on Aug. 10 when the gray and white bird set down near some trees in his yard.
The scene was not unusual, he said, as doves often gather on his property.
But then it happened again the following day.
"He landed over yonder again but this time he went in the cornfield," Bennett said. "I said, 'I'm gonna see if I can catch that bird.'
"I walked over to the corner of the field. I looked around and it was squatted down in the field, about three or four rows in."
Bennett approached but the pigeon stayed put.
"I said, 'Well, it don't seem to be scared,'" he said. "And I went to talking, 'birdie, birdie, birdie.' I got a little closer and a little closer and caught it, and then I was holding him."
Walking back to his house, Bennett noticed a band around the bird's leg with a phone number on it.
"I took him down to where I had some rabbit cages and put him down there with water and feed," he said. "I called my son, which is Paul. He went down and took pictures and got the ankle bracelet and he called the man -- his name's Ronnie, a real nice fellow."
Turns out Clark Bennett and Ronnie Reeves had a lot in common. Bennett is retired from law enforcement -- a career which included 12 years with Goldsboro Police Department, being a detective in Benson, a stint in High Point and then the police agency at Cherry Hospital. Reeves lives in Chesapeake, Virginia, where he is a firefighter with the city of Portsmouth.
Raising homing pigeons began about two years ago, he said, starting out as a hobby for his two little girls.
"I started off with four birds. At last count I had 16 or 17," Reeves said, explaining that he had two mating pairs.
When the birds are about seven or eight weeks old, the training process begins.
"I'll just open the door to the loft and let them explore the yard," he said. "After two or three days doing that, maybe every other day, they'll start to fly off and generally stay gone. The first trip might be 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, and will progressively get longer and they'll fly in circles around the house.
"Once they start flying away more than a couple hours, they're telling you they're ready to train. Then you just take them, start off a mile from the house, take them a mile in one direction, release them and they'll come back."
His loft has a one-way door so the birds can get in but once they do, they cannot get back out unless Reeves releases them.
The process continues with him stretching the distance he takes the birds out and lets them go. At a certain point, they are released and venture out further.
Over the past two years, he estimated he has probably released 30 birds. Some return, he says, and some never do.
Bennett said Reeves told him he had released 10 birds on Aug. 6 -- including Birdie -- but only seven returned.
"The hawks are the No. 1 predator," Reeves said. "Pigeons in general, they come in different breeds or varieties. Some of them are white. I have a couple white ones now.
"The white ones have a tendency when they take a break in a tree or on a roof to catch their breath, the predators will get them because they're an unusual color and they stand out. The darker birds do a lot better just because they are somewhat camouflaged."
This is the first time Reeves has ever gotten a call from anyone who found one of the pigeons.
"I said, 'Who is this and where are you at?'" he said he asked when Bennett phoned. "He said, Goldsboro, North Carolina.
"I said let me look on my map and see exactly where you're at. So I came home and put it into Google and from our house to downtown Goldsboro, it was roughly 128 miles."
Bennett suggested that "Birdie" must've decided to head to Florida on vacation.
There was also something wrong with his eye, he added, that may have "messed up his GPS."
The men discussed what to do next, agreeing it was a long trip for both to make to reunite the bird with its owner.
They decided to let Birdie continue to complete the round trip flight.
"(Reeves) told me that the next day he was going on vacation, so to keep that bird for about a week," Bennett said. "I have had him two weeks but I have enjoyed this the most to be sure."
Family, friends and neighbors have gotten in on the fun, he said.
One woman gave him a parakeet cage, then another provided a dog pen.
He added items from an aquarium and perches made up of tobacco sticks, which were from Newton Grove where his late father was born and raised. He said the sticks were about 100 years old.
Put in landlord terms, the pigeon started out in a small efficiency apartment and graduated to a nice condo, Bennett joked.
It may not be the Ritz, but room service was not bad, he said.
"People have given me seeds, crushed corn, canary seed, sunflower seeds," he said.
"I baked an ear of corn and fed it to him."
The journey for Birdie, meanwhile, is continuing as Bennett released the pigeon on Saturday, Reeves said.
"I have a latch on my loft that will let birds come in," Reeves said Monday.
"Right now, it's unlocked."
Bennett said he has thoroughly enjoyed his fine feathered house guest.
And who knows, he said -- the Grantham address may become another stop on the homing pigeon's route.
"I related it to finding a bottle on the beach," he said.
"This bottle floated up in my yard. I got lucky."