Matilda Leaves

Well our special feathered friend was apparently not meant to join our motley crew long term...
(this won't be my last blog post about her though because I have so many
more beautiful shots and stories of her that I'd love to share with you).

 

 

Long story short...

I started calling around to try to locate a vet because we thought if she was staying,

we wanted to make sure our bird baby had a good doctor to help her out when need be...

 

 

but during that process we ended up talking with an expert,
a lady who rehabilitates wild birds all of the time, we had a good long chat about pigeons,
her knowledge was so helpful and very extensive...

 

 

We still had huge concerns about how happy Matilda would be in our house, she be in a cage,

alone, more than she'd be happy with & she wanted company 24/7 which we just couldn't provide

(not with September coming and both of having to soon get back to the bump and grind of things).

 

This lady explained that Matilda probably liked us a lot for sure,
but if we wanted to be sure that she really wanted to stay with us and be an indoor bird,
we'd have to give her the choice between us and a real flock of other pigeons...

 

 

So luckily, my parents have a big beautiful flock that they feed everyday...

So we brought our sweet feathered soul over there and almost right away she went straight to them.

It took 3 try's before she left but as hard as it was we knew we were doing the right thing.

 

The first time as soon as she saw them, she zoomed out of the cage and was skirting the group by a couple of meters, when a big impressive male saw her, left the group and came to her gently and invited her to join them and she did, timidly at first but still she didn't know yet to follow the group. 

 

 

So when they left, she waited for them but than eventually came back to us & back home we went.

The next day she flew right up into the tree to see them all...but the same thing happened,

she didn't follow them when they flew away and she came back home once again

 

But the 3rd time...she flew straight to them all again, a flock of about 40,

and at 11:00am on August 26th, when they all swooped out of the tree and flew away into the horizon

she was with them...she followed...with strength and beauty and grace.

 

 

She's doing really great.  My folks see her everyday...she's eating and doing all the normal things.

Today marks her first full week out there in the wild with all her buddies.

She's only the 2nd brown bird in the group and the only female so she's really easy to spot.

 



 It was so hard to let her go...but we knew deep down it was the best for her...

We wanted to keep her...we loved her.  We always will love that special sweet brown pigeon.

Every single second I waited with baited breathe, afraid the other would be mean to her...

 

 

Every second I had to hold my arms back from grabbing her and taking her back home again...

We miss her madly.  We hope she'll be safe but we do know she has great natural instincts.

She'll always be an amazing summer love affair, full of magic and beauty, never ever to be forgotten.