I was asked on Sunday if I would take in an injured collared dove,so I agreed and set up a cage and pen..When he ariived the collared dove turned out to be a feral pigeon that had been clipped by a car and rescued by a h big issue seller who saw it happen.,(now named Tink after the guy).
There were no obvious injury's and tink seemed pretty lively but lacked flying ability.I put him in the cage but he was pacing up and down and attacking the bars,which could have caused injury so I threw a blanket over the cage and he settled down.
Given the hot weather though it wasn't going to be the best idea to leave him like that all day today,so I got up at dawn and secured the pen checking there were no gaps and let him out of the cage before going to work.came home at lunchtime and he was strutting around hapilly,came home tonight and no sign of him,so I figured he would be in the bushes at the back of the pen,went in to get some feed mixed up,came back out and Tink is sitting on the patio.watching me.
He wasn't about to be reconfined either,and ran down the garden then across the shallow end of the pond and sat on the other side watching me.I was worried if I chased him further he would panic and go in the deep end so walked off and pretended to ignore him while I checked the pen to see where he could have got out,no gaps.
Meanwhile Tink has crossed the pond again but one of the resident collared doves attacked him,so I chased that off and chased Pedro back up to the pen.Within inches of the gate he decides he can fly a little bit after all Which explains how he got out of the pen.He is now under the bushes at the far side of the pond where I can't reach him.
I have shoved his food as close as I can get and concluded he is rejecting the hospitality of a nice safe warm cage for the night.Fingers crossed theirs no cats around and he has the sense to stay out of sight of the gangster dove.
All this worry over a flipping pigeon,I must be bonkers.