This weekend we found a pigeon in front of our house that was clearly in some kind of distress... it was walking around, but wouldn't scare like a normal pigeon and seemed unable to fly. Closer inspection found a tag on its leg. It's a homing pigeon! We took it in... 1/n

NYC animal control said they wouldn't come get it. After googling a bit, I learned the tag was issued by the "National Pigeon Association", and if you email their secretary they can help you track down the owners. 2/n

So we emailed and got a prompt response. The tag was associated with a pigeon club on Long Island, the Nassau Suffolk Pigeon Fanciers... I called their tag secretary and posted some pics on their facebook group page 3/n

Their tag secretary got back to me a couple of hours later after researching the number. She said she passed my contact information on to the owner, who would call me directly. She was surprised to hear this bird turned up in Brooklyn. 4/n

The owner calls an hour later, saying he recently gave this bird to someone who lives in Brooklyn, and he has been notified and will make contact. We've had this bird on our balcony for 48 hours at this point. He's eating and drinking, but not flying. My kid gave him a name. 5/n

His name is Birdo... anyhoo, the owner finally calls after work and says he'll be right over. We met him out front and told him everything we'd learned about homing pigeons over the last two days. 6/n.

@MikeTyson has them, and there are lots of videos about pigeonkeepers in NYC. I also watched a lot about the pigeons used in WWI and WWII, and how some were awarded medals. 7/n

People on the pigeon club facebook group were very supportive, and even helped identify the breed. Birdo is a South German Moorhead (Süddeutscher Mohrenkopf). 8/n http://www.pigeontype.info/2017/05/10/south-german-moorhead-suddeutscher-mohrenkopf/?fbclid=IwAR3MYyyS4aZg4CQkILK3sU-D4mXUosPr4PcgPYpNXU2YO-QY0e16iwZPq0c

The owner said he has a coop on his roof not far from here, but also has a racoon problem. Birdo got out when a racoon got into the coop. Birdo is also *a baby*, so he was probably unprepared to do any real flying, got exhausted, and ended up in our building's front yard. 9/n

The owner said they don't have names, but he'd call this one Birdo from now on... He also told us to come by and see the birds sometime, and we certainly will. So that's this weekend's pigeon story with a happy ending. If you find one, try to track down the owner. 10/10