THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408090122
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Years ago when I moved to the North End, all the neighbors said the old townhouse across the street had literally been moved down the road from Portsmouth to the Beach.
The narrow two-story clapboard house had all the earmarks of a townhouse including a flock of pigeons that roosted in the eaves. At that time, I just assumed the pigeons came from Portsmouth, too, arriving with the house. And when the old building was demolished to make way for condominiums, the pigeons disappeared, too.
Ten years ago, the Portsmouth pigeons across the street were just about the only pigeons I saw in Virginia Beach. But now the birds are a regular part of Beach life. I occasionally see them at my bird feeder mingling with the doves, and when I walk I see them perched on roof tops, and there's always a pigeon or two keeping an eye on the traffic in the expressway underpasses.
Audubon Society member Betsy Nugent, who lives near the Cavalier hotels, said the birds roost regularly in the cupola on the top of the old Cavalier. Someone over in Linkhorn Park feeds the ducks every morning, Nugent said, and she can see the pigeons leave the cupola like clockwork every day to fly over to the duck feeding to get their morning meal.
``They are real clever about finding out where to find food,'' Nugent said, ``and they know when you're feeding and know the time to come around.''
Nugent says the reason we have more pigeons in Virginia Beach is that we're becoming more urbanized. Like house sparrows and house finches, pigeons have learned how to adapt to the urban setting.
The birds have learned the facts of city life, that they don't need wild seeds to eat because city folks will feed them, that cities may not have pristine ponds, but they have drinking fountains, and that tall buildings on which to nest are part of the surroundings.
``They are opportunistic birds,'' Nugent said. ``They take advantage of whatever's there.''
Though they are in the midst of a pastoral setting, the tall Georgian buildings down at the municipal center are even citified enough for pigeons to feel comfortable. The birds latest discovery is the top of the columns on the new court building.
``We do have quite a flock of them down here,'' said Sheryl Easton, a carpenter in building maintenance. Building Maintenance is charged with trying to keep one step ahead of the pigeons.
They take preventative measures such as erecting wire mesh cages around the building's rooftop air conditioning units to keep the pigeons from roosting under the units. Once they even had to carry a fire hose to the roof of the City Hall building to clean off the roof, Easton said.
``You drive past the public safety building in the morning and you see them lined up on the communication antenna wires,'' she said. ``It's kind of pretty, really.''
We take pigeons so for granted that it's hard to see the beauty in their iridescent blue-gray colors, but it's there. The pigeon is the father of all handsome show pigeons that have beautiful plumage.
The birds are really known as rock doves. They were so named because of their preference for nesting in the wild on rocky sea cliffs, which makes their affinity for concrete columns and underpasses and cupolas easy to understand. Here in Virginia Beach an expressway underpass or a municipal center column is as close as a pigeon will ever get to a high rocky place.
The birds, a European and Asian species, are not native to America. They were one of the first birds to be domesticated, probably thousands of years ago, and since then, they have been introduced all over the world. According to the Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds, rock doves were brought into Virginia around 1620.
At first rock doves were domesticated as a food source. Later, they were raised as carrier pigeons, trained to carry messages over long distances. For centuries the birds, among the fastest flying birds on earth, have been known for their ability to fly swiftly and accurately back to their roost.
Ancient Romans sent the news of Caesar's conquest of Gaul back to Rome by an ancestor of one of our common city pigeons, the Audubon Encyclopedia said. The book also noted that news of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo reached England by carrier pigeon four days faster than the news that was carried by horse or by ship.
The birds apparently can use the sun as a compass and even adjust their flight to make up for the sun's movement. They have several navigational systems, because they also can reach home when the sky is totally overcast.
Although there are many things folks would like to say about pigeons and most of it not good, nobody can say they aren't smart.
P.S. CHILDREN OF THE PLANTATION, a special tour of the Francis Land House will be offered at 2 p.m. Saturday. Following the tour, there'll be special activities for children.
Call 340-1732 for reservations.
LEARN ABOUT THE GEOLOGY, HISTORY AND ECOLOGY of the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge from refuge volunteer Reese Lukei at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Call 721-2412 for reservations. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff file photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Pigeons are becoming more prevalent in Virginia Beach because we're
becoming more urbanized. Pigeons have learned how to adapt to the
urban setting, including this motorized bird on Princess Anne Road.
by CNB