WE often have racing pigeons resting up for a day or two in the yard. I feel guilty that they stay as long as they do, imagining a frantic owner waiting for them back in their loft. Not realising that their prize pigeon is lolling around, pecking at grain and chatting up a feral pigeon or two. Mixing with the natives. Improving the bloodstock. Dodging our cats.

Once we trapped one of these pigeons in a net, rang its owner after reading the pigeon particulars on its leg ring, and realised he had to drive 300 miles to collect her.

"Can't we just take her a few miles down the road and throw her into the air?" I asked him before he set off on his journey. "It seems a long way to come when she's perfectly capable of flying and is just being idle about it." There were a lot of technical reasons why not, which I can't remember, but the upshot was, the pigeon was driven drove home instead of flapping back.

One reason I do recall was the danger to the pigeon of a sparrow hawk attack. The owner was concerned that, as this particular pigeon was taking so long to make up her mind about flying off again, she might be vulnerable to an airborne attack en route. Sparrow hawks do not only attack in the air, however. They have identified bird tables as a good pick-up point for a daytime snack, and one of our friends has a cracked kitchen window as a result of a misjudged sparrow hawk attack on a bluetit feeding at a glass suction-mounted birdseed holder.

Another friend, whose visiting birds have suffered greatly from sparrow hawk predation, was alarmed to see what he thought was a sparrow hawk perched on his roof. It was, in fact, a pigeon. But it turned out to be a poorly pigeon that may well have already met with a sparrow hawk, cat, power line, whatever; but something that had created a very nasty gash across the bird's throat.

Over the course of the next fortnight, my friends, Graham and Rosie, became very attached to Percy (the pigeon) and were intrigued to note how he was managing to feed, in spite of his torn crop. Apparently, whatever Percy pecked up fell straight out of his throat. If he drank water, that too sprayed out. The only way he could manage to get food or water down his throat was by a provocative toss of his head, a sort of teenage flounce. That way, by tilting his head back, he could bypass the open wound.

Although Rosie and Graham were becoming increasingly fond of Percy, their two dogs were less so. Percy had taken to nesting in an old Belfast sink that one of the border terriers, Daisy, had claimed for her place in the sun. The sight of poor old Percy, with his Halloween makeup still in place (he only lacked an axe in the back of his head, Rosie said), kept both border terriers, fearless cat fighters themselves, at a distance.

Finally, no longer able to bear watching Percy's struggle to feed and drink, Graham was able to pick Percy up and took him to the vet. Whose prognosis was poor. Percy had a necrotic neck. Not good. Percy had to pop off.

Post Percy, my friends have been very distressed. "But it's only a pigeon," their heartless friend (me) exclaimed. Not the right thing to say. Percy has exited this world with dignity, and a corner of an English garden will be forever Percy's.

Percy RIP. Recently Interred Pigeon.

Updated: 11:28 Wednesday, November 26, 2003