Thu, 9 Jan 1997, James West writes:

<<
....A typical race, by the way, consists of trucking a load of birds down to
California overnight, and releasing them there at dawn - most of them are
back in their cotes in Seattle the same night, a feat that leaves Jack & Co.
terminally awestruck and passionately attached to their birds. A few of the
less experienced ones go astray, are picked up exhausted, and are "phoned in"
from the info on their leg-bands.
Jack thinks nothing of jumping straight into his car and retrieving a bird
from a couple of hundred miles away....
>>

Pigeon racing seems to be popular in central California. I'm wondering if
some of those Seattle birds released in California, the few less experienced
ones that go astray, are among the dinner munchies for the resident
Peregrines at Point Piedras Blancas, San Luis Obispo Co., or other "traps"
where Peregrines patiently perch in wait for the misguided easy target pigeon
along the coast. Nary a one that I've seen has managed to get past the
"Point" unscathed, and that's probably a dozen or so (that I know about)
during the past three springs there monitoring gray whale cow/calf and
coastal seabird migrations. Legs (with bands) and various other body parts
recovered from favored and accessable Peregrine feeding rocks so far have
revealed that the pigeons points of origin were in the central valley
(California).

Richard Rowlett <Pagodroma at aol.com>
Bellevue, WA