I have to confess I am somewhat obsessed with pigeons … white fantail pigeons in particular.
It started about 30 years ago when I read a novel set in Provence where the old stone castle/chateaux had fantails roosting about the ramparts.
It could have been written by Lawrence Durrell … or anyone.
Anyway, when we started to build our homestead on a big bit of land on the north-western foothills of Mount Barrow in Tasmania I included a pigeon loft.
Somehow in my imagination I construed white fantail pigeons as our version of the Barbary apes of Gibraltar—-if the apes died out Gibraltar would no longer belong to Britain.
We had various financial crisis establishing our property and home, Wombat Park, but I managed to continue the tradition with our fantails, despite hawks, crows and other threats.
We were down to just one fantail a few months ago.
I built new accommodation outside the kitchen window and bought three breeding pairs to keep our lone pigeon company. The current price is $10 a bird.
After three days getting established I let them all out. They sat along the house roof ridge looking beautiful.
Two hours later the three pairs flew back to where they came from and our lone one flew back to the abandoned original pigeon loft.
I had not realized that delicate white fantail pigeons had the pigeon homing instinct.
I suppose I will have to go back to Cressy and buy them back. What a great business it must be selling homing pigeons.
However I cannot sleep easy without white fantail pigeons breeding and protecting the viability of our property.
