Rachel 1; pigeons 5

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to catch some pigeons with stringfoot at a local shopping centre. Stringfoot is a common affliction among urban pigeons where thread gets tightly tangled around their toes, cutting off the blood supply and eventually the birds loses a toe or sometimes the whole foot. It must be very painful.

Until today the score was pigeon 5; Rachel 0. Today I scored a point and finally caught one. It wasn’t the one with its legs tied together but still a serious case as the thread was so tightly wound it was difficult to remove. Ben helped and indeed he did most of the work. I caught the pigeon and held it while he did the surgery as I had forgotten to take my reading glasses – I keep forgetting I’m 50.

Here’s the foot when we first caught her.

It took a surprisingly long time to remove all of that but here’s the finished result. This bird was otherwise healthy and we released her outside as a cleaner told me the mall employs someone who comes at night and shoots them. How awful.

And here she is when we first let her go. She was a bit disoriented at first but quickly flew off. Stay safe little one!