Police last week rescued an emaciated racing pigeon that touched down in New Canaan parks, the second such bird to have flown off-course and landed in town in the past month.
Officer Allyson Halm, head of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section, said that she first spotted an exhausted pigeon last Monday, resting under cars in the parking lot at Irwin Park.
The pigeon hopped away that day, but Halm said she saw the same distinctive bird on Thursday on a trail at Waveny.
“It let me catch it,” Halm said. “Skinny as all can be… You can clearly feel the breastbone.”
Domestically raised and trained, racing pigeons are tagged and belong to hobbyists who release them remotely and clock the time it takes them to fly back home in competition.
The rescued bird is now “eating like a pig,” Halm said.
On Aug. 29, a pigeon that had been released in Pennsylvania and was supposed to fly back to Long Island touched down, exhausted, on the patio of a New Canaan residence, Halm said. Using its tag, the homeowners traced the pigeon to a member of the International Federation of Racing Pigeons and arranged to have Halm collect the bird.
A representative from the organization told Halm that southerly winds had thrown some of the birds off-flight, she said.
The same representative is being contacted to find the owner of the pigeon rescued last week, she said.
Officer Halm, thank you for taking good care of these needy pigeons. Are there any regulations on these hobbyists in the care of these special birds?