# found a wood pigeon



## bida_lover (Dec 18, 2002)

hello everybody,

I wanted to hear your thoughts on something, though I can't provide much info myself.

Last night I found a wood pigeon in my street (as I was coming home from work). He looked perfectly normal, no puffy feathers or greasy at all like most sick pigeons. The only thing I noticed was that his wing was hanging a little low. I looked at him fr a while to see if there was something wrong or not. Because often I would see a bird with a wing thats kind of off, then I would approach him and they would fly away perfectly fine. So I approached him and he didn't fly away. He was standing between me and a fence so I thought maybe I can catch him and get him some help. I was a bit hesitant at first because I have never dealt with wood pigeons before and I read somewhere that they go in shock relatively easily. But I just couldn't leave him there as there are a lot of cats in my neighborhood and I know I would just feel horrible if I did so. So I tried to capture him. I thought it would be relatively easy as they seem so slow and "less intelligent" then the normal grey pigeons that I have dealt with before. Boy was I wrong... He was extremely agile, I just could not catch him even though he was relatively cornered. I tried to grab him a couple of times, but I kept missing and one time a grabbed his tail feathers and a couple came off, after this I felt horrible and stopped as I was afraid I would hurt him and he looked scared. He even "flew" a couple of centimeters, though it was more of a lifted jump then flying. And since I tried to catch him he didn't fly away so I definitely knew something was wrong. So after that I decided to give it one more try, luckily my boyfriend was with me so I asked him to make sure he didn't run under the parked cars and I approached from the other side and I was able to catch him. So I held him in my hands, and noticed some blood on my wrist, I thought maybe he had pecked me, but after that I realized blood was pouring over my other hand. It was from the pigeon, it seemed to come from his wing so we rushed to our house. The poor thing looked so scared he didn't try to break free, so I was afraid he had gone into shock or something. But he wasn't hyperventilating and so we decided it was best to put him in a box and not make any noise. I did however leave about 10 cm of the top of the box open to allow fresh air to enter.

I called the animal ambulance and they said they would pick him up to bring him to the bird sanctuary. 

After 20 minutes he tried to get out of the box by banging against the top of it, where he could see outside (the part that I left open) so we turned of the lights in the room and turned the open side of the box towards the wall so it would look like it was closed, but he would still get the benefits of fresh air.

After a while he stopped moving and got quiet, so I think he was resting. I had to resist the urge to go check on him every time he stayed quiet. (I was scared he died or something).

I left him alone, because I was afraid to hurt him even more if I examined him. Im not very good with wounds and blood. Im not familiar with bird physiology and also I was afraid we would hurt him even more if we started to poke and pry and try to move his wings etc. And help would soon arrive, or so we thought.

After 3 to 4 hours (around midnight) they came to pick him up. The ambulance man examined him quickly. The bird tried to protest and was kind of 'aggressive', which to me seemed like a good sign. The man told me that wood pigeons are very feisty so this was to be expected. I thought it was cute that he was trying to fend for himself, it gave me hope that he would be fine. He told me his feet and wings seems fine, but couldn't determine on the spot where the blood came from. I told him that he wasn't flying when we picked him up, and he told me that he might have hit something while flying and was probably dizzy or concussed. So they would examine him at the shelter.

I told them that I wasn't able to give him water since I was afraid he was in shock and I didn't want to stress him even further, and also the box we put him in was the only box we had in the house and it was pretty small, it was for A4 papers. and I would be able to put in a little tray with water, as it barely fit the bird in there. So he said they would give him some water. So they took him away. And that was that. 

I haven't been able to contact the shelter to find out whats wrong with him since they are not available on sundays and also I know for a fact that they have terribly unhelpful people on the phone. This is the fifth time maybe more that i have sent them a bird and i have only once been able to retrieve any kind of information on the outcome of the treatment. Which upsets me since i emotionally invest in a bird and do whatever i can for them, make a fool out of myself for running after a bird in the middle of the street but I don't care since I'm able to help a living creature. So to just look in some files and tell me something...ANYTHING on him would provide me some peace of mind. 

But anyway i will call them tomorrow and i hope he is ok!!! 

What I wanted to know is where do you think the blood came from? since his legs and wings were ok. He could fly-jump a little bit. The wing on the side of the blood was hanging lower, but he was still able to flap them, so does that meant that its not broken? Or if it was like the man said, nothing wrong with his wing, where could the blood have come from? A flesh wound? would a flesh wound make a wing hang lower?
Or if he was concussed or dizzy a little? would there be bleeding? maybe from his head, ear or neck?

thanks in advance


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## pigeonlover2k11 (Jul 6, 2011)

i would suppose that a cat got him.maybe the blood was coming from his belly area? in that case,the cat most likely punctured his gut.sorry but he is most likely dead if this happened hopefully this isnt the case.tell us if you find out about the pigeon.of course,hopefully he is ok and recovering  always hope for the best.


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Sometimes birds knock the elbow of the wing against something and that causes heavy bleeding.

if it seemed to come from the wing area then it probably did.

When trying to catch a pigeon it is best to throw something light over them...if you have something light to throw, of course!

Thank you for helping him, even if you have your reservations about the wildlife hospital it is better off there than disabled on the street. I hope you get good news about his progress tomorrow.


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## amyable (Jul 7, 2007)

Hi, and welcome.

Thanks for picking up this Woodie as it was obviously in great danger.
They are very fiesty and not good at being handled so all the behaviour you described was quite normal.
I'd tend to agree with the rescue man that he had quite likely flown into something and hopefully bruised rather than broken his wing. This would cause it to droop lower than the other.
This could have been where the blood came from as their feathers are very dense and it wouldn't be obvious where the injury was without wetting the area to see through the feathers.
Another possibility if there was a lot of blood was in his efforts to evade capture, he might have broken a blood feather. If one of these breaks it will bleed heavily and it can look horrendous but once stopped it isn't all that serious.
I notice often Woodies do find it hard to gain height quickly when they first take off and I've seen one in the past fly straight into a bus as it didn't get high enough. I cringe when I see one taking off in front of a car as you do see them killed by the side of the roads due to this also.
My guess it has had one of these type of accidents and if so, with some short term care could easily make a good recovery if hopefully it's only bruised it's wing. If it's broken it will need to be strapped and contained for a good few weeks.
There is a possibility it had been injured by a cat but it then would have more likely been killed and taken away as a cat would carry it off and not leave it there once caught.

I think you did the right thing in getting into professional care as they are hard to treat yourself if you've not dealt with one before. Feral pigeons are a lot easier as their temperament is calmer. So I wish him luck and I hope you can find out some news to put your mind at rest.
One way or another it's better off where it is if it couldn't fly to get out of danger from preditors, it wouldn't have stood much chance then.

Thanks for what you did to help.

Janet


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## bida_lover (Dec 18, 2002)

thank you for your answers!

The bleeding definitely not came from any other area than near his wings. I would say upper wing area where we would have our shoulders. Or maybe it was on his torso at the height of his shoulders. It was hard to say. He did seem pretty lively so i hope he is ok.
If he knocked his elbow like you said then what are his chances? will he be able to fly again? 

I thought of that also but we didn't have anything with us that day. I only had my wallet and my hands haha. And i wouldnt dare to throw my wallet at him! 

yes you are right. the hospital is bad with humans who care, but I'm sure that they treat the animals well! At least in the summer. In the winter they are a bit harsher since they don't have enough space for al the injured birds. 

Aaaah i wish i could've taken him to the vet myself and taken care of him myself. Or at least take him to the vet and then to the shelter. But since it was a saturday night there are no vets open and we don't own a car so i couldn't take him somewhere safe myself! And i felt like he needed medical attention that night because of the bleeding. And maybe antibiotics. I just couldn't wait till monday to take him to the vet myself.


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## bida_lover (Dec 18, 2002)

amyable said:


> Hi, and welcome.
> 
> Thanks for picking up this Woodie as it was obviously in great danger.
> They are very fiesty and not good at being handled so all the behaviour you described was quite normal.
> ...


we posted at the same time! 
thank you for your in depth analysis. I will most definitely post something as soon as I find out what happened to him. 

What cute temperament they have! So feisty! Normally i only see them goof around and look scared or flustered. They are also quite slow and seem a little bit chubby so i always thought they were a bit goofy! But man did I have a hard time catching him! 

I don't know why but I always seem to find a wounded pigeon I just found one last month and now this one. Normally I find them in the wintertime. 

I hope he just sprained his shoulder or whatever it was and its nothing serious like you described. I felt so bad when he started bleeding because i hadn't noticed it when he was on the ground so I instantly thought it was my fault but then because it was dripping so much i thought maybe its a wound. Then when the man didn't find a wound i thought maybe he sprained it and i made it worse by grabbing him. Since i caught him i held him with both my hands and his wings together. I knew that if he broke his wing it might hurt him but there was no other way for me to carry him and make sure he didn't escape. Since that would defeat everything i was trying to accomplish. 

yeah I noticed that too they seem to take off rather sluggishly, i always get a scare if I'm with the car with someone or in the bus. But luckily most wood pigeons we have here in my country live in rather secluded areas. Or in the suburbs where there are a lot of trees and people don't speed as much. And the normal grey pigeons live in the denser areas with lots of people and cars. 
I find it strange that they fly so sluggishly seeing how agile this one was. It startled me quite a bit i was afraid i wouldn't be able to cath him especially since there were a lot of parked cars around.


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## pigeonlover2k11 (Jul 6, 2011)

thanks guys,now i feel stupid 
yeah,id say thats what happened,he probably knocked his wing against something.have you not talked to the people yet? i,personally,really want to know what happened to the woodie even though i gave avstupid reply :/


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## amyable (Jul 7, 2007)

Hey pigeonlover, don't be so hard on yourself. 
We all are just guessing at what might have happened so who knows, there's nothing to say you aren't right about what happened. We'd just prefer you weren't in this case!!

bida_lover, They are extremely fast flyers once they get going and have incredible strength in their wings.
Sadly I've had some that have had broken wings and because they fight so hard I find it almost impossible to strap them successfully.
You can get it bandaged ok and then with one strong flap they undo all the hard work so I do tend to take those to a rescue centre.
It didn't sound as if yours had a broken wing and from where you reckoned the blood came from I'd still guess it was a collision with something.
Maybe it was startled and flew without watching where it was heading.
I've also seen Woodies panic in an aviary and flap against the wire trying to get away and they bleed from the front edge of the wing as they scrape the skin.

Anyway. let's be positive and send healing thoughts for a good recovery. 

Janet


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## bida_lover (Dec 18, 2002)

I just talked to those people for an hour over the phone! 

At first they didn't want to give me any information they said they don't collect info on where the pigeons came from and only record whats wrong ith them once they are in. But last time they told me they could do that so i was very frustrated. They didn't have time to answer me they said or to go check the datebooks.

So I kept pressing them and told them thats not what they said last time. Finally i spoke the manager and it was such a long boring conversation. Honestly I knew that this would happen. Last time they told me get the ambulance number or we can't help you, and this time i have that number and they still refuse to help me. 

Anyway after a long and tiring conversation with the manager that kept going in circles he finally told me they had 3 woodies in that night and one of them died and one of them had a limp wing and he is doing fine. So I'm betting that ones mine! 
If they just told me from the start it could have saved us all some time! I honestly don't understand these people. 

anyway so he is doing fine and as soon as he's all better they are going to release him!!


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## pigeonlover2k11 (Jul 6, 2011)

yay! thank god


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## amyable (Jul 7, 2007)

Hi,
I'm so pleased you managed to get some info in the end!
Some people do just like making life difficult for everyone. Well done for keeping on at them.

Great that at least that they're caring enough to help Woodies so brilliant that your Woodie stands a good chance.

Thanks for letting us know. 

Good luck with any future rescues as you're obviously very aware and can spot birds in need.

Janet


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## pigeonlover2k11 (Jul 6, 2011)

yeah i agree with amyable


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