Flights of fancy on a summer’s stroll

A FEW months ago a reader told me a pair of elegant, ringed pigeons had arrived at his farmyard and settled in, roosting in a barn.

For a single racing pigeon to stray is not uncommon: it rests overnight and then flies on. But two pigeons arriving and settling down? Were they “flying the coop”, absconding to a pre-arranged plan? Was the pigeon-fancier mating them with birds they didn’t fancy? Was it an elopement – “Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away...” – and was the farmhouse on the shores of Dunmanus Bay, in west Cork, their Reno, Nevada or Gretna Green?

Or was it just a sudden, mad, impetuous moment that sent them winging away from the flock, leaving behind all that competitiveness and regimentation and pigeon-coop super-diet to lead a free life and raise squabs that would never wear a ring? Unlikely as it seems, subsequent developments argue for a tryst. Setting up home in the tolerant farmer’s yard, far from the confines of the dove cote, they built a nest and, as spring arrived, two white eggs were laid and in due course, two squabs were hatched.