Walter

Well I couldnt think of anything else to call this one so Walter it is. Lots has happened. I finally discovered the Pigeon and Dove Rescue UK who I sent a photo to and they told me he/she is much younger than we supposed and was probably only about 14 days old when we found him. They also said to feed him on chick crumbs which we have been doing since and defrosted peas. He is doing well and grown loads and still in teh cockateil cage but now sits on a perch and we hav ehad to give him a larger perch since his feet are now much larger than a cockateil and I wouldnt want him to do any damage to them. He has a new perch made from a piece of leylandii! Anyway we are keeping him till the spring. If we release in winter chances are he will die. Turns out the Abandonment act deals exactly with this kind of situation where to release a wild animal that has litle chance of survival is a crime. I had decided he was staying to spring before this but though if we are to keep a wild animal in a cage we should find out the law. Its pretty straight forward by what I ( painstakingly) read so long as he is in a cage large enough to open his wings and he is - easily. The main issue right now is to get him weaned so he can live outside in a flight until the spring. He is supposed to love peas in all stages of development but he just will not eat anything unless hand fed. WE tried to half starve him but had to give in cos do not want the little fellow to die. He will look at fod and pick it up but as far as I know so far is too lazy to eat himself. Aparently my adviser at Pigeon and Dove Rescue has foun juvenile woodies sitting next to wild bird seed and half starving since they do not understand they should eat! Well we will build hima flight in the next couple of days and as soon as he is eating he is living in it. Probably till March or April I would think. To release you have to have weather forcast for 3 clear days and thats when you release them. Until then we will look after him and try not to take him. right now he is ridiculously take and jumps on your hand when you offer it. He can fly though and has had a couple of flights in the kitchen. We now bring inside to feed since I was told to be careful not to lose him else he will just die. So no more outside open air feed and just bring him inside for this. The rest of the time he is outside. Right now its raining and I feel very sorry for him but he has got some shelter and does need to learn to cope with the wind and rain if he is to live free. Once we get him into a run/flight he will have much less human contact so should be less tame. I read that woodies do not do well in captivity and are suitable for hard release ( wildlife and countryside act) - ie no after feeding but Pigeon and Dove Rescue say that it is a good idea to put food out for him once he is released which is good for me cos I will more than likely be very attached to him by then but I do want him to fly off and live free. The lady who has advised me has several woodies in captivity - I assume handicapped ones and there are quite a few santuaries around but I have decided that he should be released here where he came from. WE did cut down his home but we have many more trees and there are lots round us in other gardens as well. Also he has familly here and apparently they could even now still take him on if he was freed but we just do not know and he would still probably perish in winter. People do not understand at all. They seem to think because Walter is a pigeon we should just have left him to die. What a strange world that folk wil help a blackbird or robin but not a wood pigeon!