pigeon question (not pets or home related)

I was riding one of my horses this evening and there was a single pigeon in the ring. As I was leading my horse around the ring before getting on, I noticed the pigeon would walk away from us, but never flap his wings or act afraid of us. He'd just turn around so he wasn't facing us. i thought that was very odd considering it was me and a horse walking by several times. I got on and rode and the pigeon never left the ring. He just walked around, didn't look scared, didn't ever even try to fly. He didn't flinch when we came close.

I found this all very odd. I've never seen a pigeon act like this. He looked totally healthy (didn't look like he was injured at all).

I noticed that he had some sort of ring / ID tag (?) around one of his legs with a pinkish/purplish label on it. I didn't want to touch him, but I almost felt like he'd let me touch him or pick him up. (Birds can carry west nile, which is transferable to horses. Even though my guys are vaccinated, I wasn't about to take any chances...)

Was this just a weird experience or something else? Could he be domesticated and somehow got away? Could his strange behavior be attributable to some sort of disease?

I'm sure I'm over analyzing this, but it was such a strange thing to see...

Re: pigeon question (not pets or home related)

Maybe it was a bird dog training pigeon?

I had a BF who had homing pigeons to train his dog for bird hunting. They are supposed to fly home but maybe he was taking a break.

....

Message edited 3/7/2013 3:02:10 PM.

Re: pigeon question (not pets or home related)

People keep and race pigeons, and that is how they mark them.

We live about a mile away from one of those places, and one afternoon we saw a pigeon on our deck with a ring around the leg. We did research about it, they have pigeon 'registries' where owners can list their info with the pigeon's number.

But we could never get close enough to see the pigeon's number. We put out some water and food, and the next day it left. I still wonder if it found it's way back home.

Re: pigeon question (not pets or home related)

My father has racing pigeons, the band on the pigeons leg has numbers and can be identified that he belongs to someone. Many of the pigeons that are raised by the pigeon flyers are very friendly. My father will have birds laid directly in the palm of his hand. That pigeon is used to being around people.