# Sooty and Dirty ?



## Skogsdua (Apr 15, 2016)

This is my very firstborn Sottobanca, from late April-15. He has a very nice purpleish breast, but does it seem like he carries both dirty and sooty?


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## Skogsdua (Apr 15, 2016)

This is his parents. The grizzle is his father and the ash red his mother.


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## Skogsdua (Apr 15, 2016)

I just had to attach a picture of his firstborn from September this year. <3 
The mother of this little beauty is a yellow grizzle.

Anything I can do so the pictures are not that big in the tread, by the way?


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Lovely birds!


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## Skogsdua (Apr 15, 2016)

Thank you Cwebster 
This fellow has a very special place in my heart. Not only my first pigeonbaby ever, but when he was about 12 days old I found him stonecold and lifeless, stuck between the net and the ground. 
He had been falling about 60 cm out of his nest, and ended up stuck on his back on the stony ground. I was sure he was dead. 
But suddenly I more felt than saw a little movement or breath, I don't know what or why, but I rushed him into my quails who had a heating lamp awailable. While I sat there crying with him in my hands, hoping for my hubby to come home soon to (check if anything broken and maybe) end his life for good, he came more and more back to life. And that moment when he opened his eye just a little, I could not belive it. When my hubby came home, he checked him and nothing broken. A miracle I though. His parents accepted him at once he was back in his nest, even though he'd been away more than an hour, and all was just happiness again. 

Then I noticed him sometimes laying on his back, not been able to turn himself around. When he do end up on his back, he just lay still, not even trying to help himself. And, unfotunately, he is not able to fly either. 
I've felt sorry for him so many times when the other pigeons take off into the sky, and he has to stay on the ground. I only let him out in my garden when I can watch him. But I made him a ramp from the outside cage so he can walk in and out as he pleases, and he is a tough little fella, even with the bigger males. 
I never thought he would find himself a mate, and when he did, I never thought he would ever be able to "do his job", because he don't seem to have much balance. When their first egg hatched, I was pretty much convinced she'd been with another male, but when their next egg hatched, I knew he had to be the father because I had separated all the males and females but him a month before. 
I know it's silly, but I do put a lot of human feelings in my pigeons. I am just so happy for him beeing able to have his own girl, remembering once he was very eager to lay himself in another couples nest. He had that female and the nest first, but she choosed another male when their eggs did not hatch, and she used that same nest again with her new partner. Now with his own eggs and squabs to take care for, he is doing an exelent job with their little ones <3


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## Skogsdua (Apr 15, 2016)

He walks around like this all the time, pretending to fly, I guess.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Beautiful birds they are.


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## Skogsdua (Apr 15, 2016)

Thank you, Jay3


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