I too, while in the Navy, had an experience with a bird onboard. I was
the Officer of the Deck on a surfaced submarine, cruising northeast up
the English Channel, looking for the entrance to Portsmouth harbor, in a
hazy fog. The lookout and I were sorting and dodging through all the
surface traffic while the Navigator in the control room was trying to get
a navigational fix to determine our position. In those days, we used
something called SINS, which was supposed to calculate our position based
on a known fixed position and the ship's course and speed. Ours was
known as the Ship's Inport Navigational System, because it was only
functional when the technical representative was onboard in port....
Anyway, during all the confusion, I started noticing that there were a
bunch of pigeons flying past, one of which landed on the bridge
windshield, totally exhausted. For the next half hour, the pigeon sat
there while I called for some water and sunflower seeds to be sent up. I
also noticed that this pigeon was very tame and banded with several bands
on each leg, which I figured indicated that this was a racing pigeon
(which obviously lost).
Suddenly, the pigeon took off over my left shoulder in a direct flight.
Just at that time, the Navigator called up, stating that he had obtained
a fix, and recommended a course to bring us onto the approach to
Portsmouth. I concurred with the Navigator's recommended course. It was
the same bearing that the pigeon had flown!
Jamie Acker
Bainbridge Island
BIowler1 at juno.com

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