That was sure nice to view. Thanks so much, Tom. We have them nesting in the cliffs of M mountain which is a back drop to Socorro. They happen to like having pigeons for brunch about as much as a Cooper's hawk. I'm thinking that Columbus has a few less pigeons because of them.
Back in 1999, I was asked to substitute for a 4th grade teacher in Socorro. One of the things I did was bring one of my racing homers to the classroom so the kids could learn a little bit about pigeons and have the chance to hold and or pet one. Each of the students wrote a short note and we attached them to the bird's legs. I used to call it pigeon mail. I would go into the loft and take the notes off its leg and then bring them to the kids in the classroom to read. When we finished two kids were chosen to toss the bird so that they could watch him make about two circles and then head south to Luis Lopez where his loft is. On the pigeon's second circle out of nowhere---the Peregrine, who looked like a dart coming out of the heavens, came diving down at the unsuspecting homer and nailed that pigeon in flight. One of the students looked at me and exclaimed, "Wow, that was like an explosion!" I had to agree because the sky seemed full of feathers at the impact zone.
I looked at the class and said, "Time to forget about the Pigeon Mail. Let's go into the classroom and talk about Mother Nature."
Al
