Charlie - The Pigeon who Loved Car Rides

I had always believed that cats killed birds, and birds were afraid of cats, but one helpless little pigeon taught me that love overcomes all.

Charlie fell, rather than flew into our laps one spring day back in 1992, landing on our doorstep in a box brought by some neighborhood boys. He was a rather pathetic sight, shivering and frightened, with hardly a feather yet sprouted.

The boys told me they had found him under the bridge west of town, and they had been trying to feed him garlic sausage, which he had steadfastly refused. They thought it was a baby hawk, but I could tell right away from its beak and claws that it definitely wasn’t a carnivorous bird.

They wanted to keep it at home, but they had a big old Tom cat that loved to catch birds, and they asked me to take it.

It just so happened that I had also recently acquired a kitten of a most unusual condition, and I was concerned about the same problem, but something told me it would be alright. I relieved the boys of their burden, and they biked away to further discoveries.

With such a young bird, it is always hard to tell exactly what species you are dealing with, so I decided that a quick trip out to the bridge might give me some clues what to feed it. What I found left me no doubt as to the type of bird I had, or to how it came to be in my hands.

Under the bridge were several pigeon nests and one had been knocked down on to the rocks and into the creek below. It seems that our neighbor boys had been doing more than looking when they found him. The parent birds were still flying around with the others, frantically trying to comprehend what had happened to their nest, so the tale was told and I knew what I had to do.

Since there was no returning it to the nest, which lay smashed at my feet, along with several of its more unlucky inhabitants, I returned home to begin the long process of hand-rearing a bird.

The first thing was to try to find out what I could feed it, and how. This turned out to be a lot easier than I thought, as I hit upon a recipe in one of my bird books. I already had three budgies flying around loose in the house, and decided to mash up some of their food, with some cream-of-wheat cereal and milk.

Mixed into a soft porridge consistency, I was able to feed it to him using a small set of needle-nose pliers that substituted very nicely for the mother’s beak. Once I was able to get him to try it a bit, he began to gulp it down eagerly, and soon it was blinking sleepily, its tiny featherless belly bulging.

Ensconcing him in his own little cage, more for his safety than anything, he looked tragically cute all wrapped up in some old socks to keep him warm. It took several feedings a day to keep him happy, and more than a few early-morning snacks so I could sleep in a little. My daughter, who was always interested in helping with whatever critters we were hosting at the time, really loved Charlie, and often sat with him on her lap while she watched cartoons. We would put a few paper towels or a rag under him, as a pigeon is prone to do his business about every 12 minutes, and holding one for long isn’t wise, especially if you are ready for work!

I decided to call it “Charlie” for some reason. Maybe it was because my boss always called me Harry, from "Harry and the Hendersons", the movie. My family name is Henderson, and that movie was popular about then, so he always called me that. I thought it might be a nice gesture if I called the pigeon “Charlie”, in his honor.

Within a few weeks we had all become accustomed to the routine, Charlie included, and his adult feathers had come in, giving him the classic pigeon look. He was a Grey Rock Pigeon, with black and white stripes in all the right places. A real beauty.

He had quickly outgrown his cage with the need to flap his wings, so he moved up to a big box that I could put his seed and water in. This allowed me to keep the mess contained during the day, and cover him so he would be quiet at night. A pigeon likes to flick and spread its food around, and often jumps into the water dish for a quick bath, so the mess can be incredible unless you control it. Molting is also a problem with a young bird, and feathers were flying everywhere for awhile while he got settled into his adult colors.

I was awakened one morning to find him proudly perched on the Budgie cage, which hung high in our utility room. The normal inhabitants were in a frantic state of indignation, flying around the whole house, chirping madly at their giant cousin’s intrusion on their home. He had obviously learned to fly during the night, and was now quite determined to show off his new-found abilities, by chasing them, or attempting to follow their aerial acrobatics.

By the time I had everyone back in their respective areas and things settled down a bit, there were Budgie and Pigeon feathers right into the basement, but I finally got it all cleaned up. Thank God for Electrolux! A broom just doesn’t cut it with feathers, believe me, and I had my hands full keeping ahead of them all in the next few weeks as they got used to his frequent visitations to their perch.



About that time, Ronny came into our lives, almost the same way that all the other foundlings did. Ronny was a cowboy wanna-be, ex-truck-driver, run-down diabetic, who needed a place as much as we needed him to help us.

He had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when he was nine years old, and soon after had heard the doctors tell his mother that such cases rarely lived to be more than twenty or thirty. From that point onward Ronny had lived his life as if he were “Evil Knievel”, engaging in every vice and risk, knowing that whatever happened, “he was here for a good time, not a long time”. He never ever hurt anyone but himself, but it had taken its toll on him over the years.

His form of diabetes was almost impossible to control, even under medical supervision, and his kidneys had failed at last. By the time I met him, he was in need of dialysis, and daily life was a matter of injections, reactions, and insulin overdoses. Looking at him always reminded me of that story about the old beat-up cowboy, who said, “If I’da know’d I was gonna live so long, I’da taken better care of m’self”.



Despite all this, he became a fast friend, and was always willing to watch my two kids if I had to go out for a meeting or with the sports teams after school. He also loved to cook, and would prepare some incredible meals while I was away, so that we all enjoyed a big feast when I returned. His favorite was spaghetti with meat sauce that was really unique. You never knew what was going to be in it, (and frankly, neither did he), but it was always good, and we loved him for it.

One night he got half way through making the sauce and began to get confused, he put a great wad of Angel-hair spaghetti into a cold pot of water to boil and then forgot about it. By the time I came home, we had a huge pot of pasta wall paper paste, and he was in a real dither about having messed up so bad. My daughter quickly put on another pot of water to boil, and we soon had dinner as planned, but it really bugged him that he couldn’t do it right.

Sometimes I would come home to find him face down in a pile of sugar on the kitchen floor. He had been having an insulin reaction, and needed sugar fast. In his confusion, it would often get spilled, but he would get to it somehow, even if he passed out for awhile. After a lifetime of struggle with this condition he hated going to the hospital, and would fight with determination when they began to treat him.

At first I would urge him to let me to take him to the clinic, but I soon learned that no amount of arguing would accomplish that. He had no love of Doctors or nurses, and I finally came to understand why. Perhaps you will too, later.

Charlie and Ronny became attached in a strange way. Ronny always, and I mean ALWAYS wore a straw cowboy hat that look like it had come over on the Ark, and was pinched up at the top so that the grooves were almost touching. The front and back were bent down so much that you could hardly see his eyes, and the back touched his neck. Charlie found that the top of Ronny hat was a most appealing space to perch, and frequently landed there whenever he wore his hat in the house. The spacing in the two straw sides just seemed to be perfect for two pigeon legs to straddle and no matter where Ronny went, that hat seemed to be a magnet for Charlie to come and rest, and usually leave a deposit for his troubles.

I don’t know how many of you have ever been around pigeons, but they really are special in so many ways. Yes, they are dirty and noisy, and they can carry diseases, but not as many as people. They are also quieter than people.

Charlie was a male, and would sit and “Coo”, for hours if you held him right. He loved to have his beak stuck right into your hand, between the thumb and forefinger. He had really imprinted on humans, and was more comfortable with us than all his animal relatives that surrounded him. He still lay with Flopper, our cat, for hours on the couch, but he seemed to prefer human company. Flopper was a most unusual cat, and if you would like to hear about his life with me, check out my story entitled, “Flopper – The Dizzy Cat”, at Writers.com. If you liked this story, I’m sure you’ll like his, as he was just as unique and taught me a lot about what people call, “infirmity”.

I told you all about Ronny because I wanted you to know what happened to them both. I don’t believe in destiny, or divine intervention, or fate or anything like that, because I think that would completely defeat the purpose of God’s creation of the Universe. I think God made the universe so that what comes of it might finally learn to appreciate God for what it is, which is always good, and we must be good also.

While I was at school each day, Charlie had free roam of the town, and would visit routinely visit several places as if on a tight schedule. He began by following me to school, flying overhead, and then off to the post office to watch all the people coming to get their mail. He would always sit on the roof just above the doorway, and a number of people reported that he seemed to time his evacuations just about perfectly to get them as they went inside. Who, and why he chose to anoint was a topic for discussion on coffee row for some time, I must say.

Then he went to visit his wild pigeon relatives that inhabited the elevators in town. Watson is a farming community, and although many of the old elevators are gone, we still have a few, and the pigeons love all the spillage they find around them. If I went over there to see if he was with them, he would come down and land on my head, as if establishing me as his human, and that the others should take note.

During the afternoons, he made a series of stops around the neighborhood to both visit or grab a snack here and there. There are many bird feeders throughout the town, and he looked quite comical trying to balance himself on them, while the sparrows hovered jealously. Sometimes he just stopped for a rest on a particularly nice window sill or fence post until his next cue. Over the years I had countless stories of his travels come to me through our neighbors and friends.

He seemed to end up everywhere, walking confidently up and down somebody’s veranda rail, or landing on their picnic tables in the back yard, if he saw something interesting. He really was as tame as a house-cat, and would sit and coo like crazy if they picked him up and held him in their arms, with his beak tucked in their hand. Then, after what was obviously long enough, he would fly away to turn up somewhere else, as a surprise guest at any outdoor occasion.

You can just imagine what a shock it is when a bird shows up to land right in the middle of your tea party or whatever you might be having. If he was unwelcome anywhere , he never reported, but I know he cheered up a lot of people as he gallivanted about town.

By three-thirty, he was always on the peak of our house, waiting for me to come home. When I pulled into the driveway, he would immediately swoop down, land on the roof of the car and then jump onto my head as I walked into the house. At the door, he would jump down and wait patiently until I had opened it, and then waddle inside to jump into his feed box. His adherence to protocol was almost uncanny, as he flew or paraded around in his funny pigeon way.

He was obsessed by toes, and if someone was in bare feet, he couldn’t resist following them around and attempting to peck at their toes. This used to send my daughter into paroxysms of laughter as he chased her around the house, cooing and flapping to keep up to her. He wouldn’t eat worms, but he couldn’t keep his beak off those toes!

Sometime in his second year he began to do something nobody expected, and when it first happened we didn’t figure it out until we saw the faces of people staring as we drove by. When I went out to get in the car, he would fly down to the roof of the car and sit there at the peak where the roof met the glass. The vinyl roof was coming off my old Oldsmobile, and it gave him some grip on the slippery surface.

Normally he would take off as soon as we began to move, and that was what we expected him to do. One day I was going down town for groceries and needed to take the car. As I left the driveway, I assumed he had taken off as usual, and proceeded to the store. As I drove down the street I never really took notice of the people stopping to watch me, but when I drove by the school playground there was no mistaking that they had noticed something. They stopped their game to point and shout, but I never quite understood what they were yelling at me, and thought they were just waving at their teacher.

The surprise was revealed however, when I drove into the CO-OP parking lot in town. People coming out of the store, stopped with their groceries in arms to stare and laugh when I pulled up. Still puzzled, I got out of the car only to find a very excited and pleased Pigeon still sitting on the car, cooing like mad, as if he was trying to tell me something. I had to laugh with everybody else at his antics, and told them all in the store what had just happened.

I half-expected him to fly away again when I came out to go home, but he seemed to have no intention of moving, so off we went again. I wondered how long he would stay on the roof if I sped up, so I accelerated a bit and craned my neck out the window to see what he would do.

With his claws dug firmly into the peeling vinyl, he hung on stubbornly as I hit forty kilometers an hour. With his wings flung out a bit for stability in the wind, he was absolutely the funniest sight I have ever witnessed, bar none. Admiring his determination, I slowed down so he could enjoy the ride, and took him for a little spin around town. After a half-hour tour of Watson, he was still there, and seemed happy, so I headed home.

After that, our rides were a regular daily jaunt, even though he still did his town inspection tour every day at the same time, winter and summer. If I slept in a little on Saturday mornings, he would tolerate a bit of tardiness, but by nine o’clock, he was ready to get going, and would start cooing like Caruso.

He would jump out of his box and head for the door, on the wing or on foot. He never seemed to complain too much after that, and he was gone most of the day, right until three-thirty, when we usually got home from school. No matter when we got there, he would be sitting on the peak of our house, pacing back and forth impatiently, and as soon as he saw us coming, would glide down and land gracefully on the car.

He never minded who was driving, as long as they would take him along, and not go out onto the highway. Then he would eventually take to the wind, and head off wherever pigeons go when they want to.

One day Ronny had been out for an errand with the car, and as he returned, Charlie came along in with him. Unaccustomed to Charlie’s habits, Ronny came in and shut the door as usual, but didn’t see Charlie coming in right on his heels. Ronny’s vision was very bad at the time, as his Kidneys had completely failed, and he was on regular dialysis.

A few minutes later I heard what I thought was a knock at the door, and went to answer it. As I opened the door, I discovered poor Charlie flopping away in the space between the inside and outside door. One of his legs had been caught in the door and was obviously broken. It lay bent at an impossible angle, and he was unable to stand on it.

We immediately set about treating his injuries, and he was a real trooper while we worked. I fashioned a small splint out of two tooth picks trimmed for the purpose, and with a bit of strong suture tape I was able to set his leg straight and hold it in the proper position. He took to his box and sat looking rather dejected and offended for the next day or so. Then he began hopping around a bit, and flew around the house, until we had to let him out.

After two weeks the bandage fell off, but the leg remained quite straight, although it had large swelling at the knee joint. He continued to limp on it for the next week or so, but then seemed entirely healed. His left leg was always bigger than his right as a result, and was really his only identifying mark different from a dozen other pigeons flying around town at the time.

He was always the center of attention and conversation when people came to visit, and children in particular were fascinated by his friendly tameness. I have more than a few pictures of him sitting on the head of someone or other, and one still makes me laugh after twenty years.

Keeping in mind the frequency of pigeon bowel movements, it was never a good idea to let him stay on your head for too long. This was a lesson learned from multiple experiences with his perfect timing upon landing or taking off.

One of my son’s friends had come to pick him up one afternoon, and as he came in the door Charlie came in too, and landed directly on his new ball hat. Before we could say “Jack Sprat”, he had done his business on the hat, which then ran down the boy’s cheek. Our camera was always close-by, and I got a shot of his face right at that “Yech!!!!” moment. That picture is a treasure I never fail to check out in our albums when I go looking through them for memories. I had to wash his hat and his face for him, but the look on his face has been a source of laughter and well worth the effort.

Life continued on in our little routine until November that year. Ronny was living with us, and we were making regular trips to Saskatoon for his dialysis, but he was failing fast. His brother was in line to donate a kidney to him, but Ron had a chronic infection from somewhere which prevented the surgery from going ahead as planned. His white blood count was just too high for them to attempt such a complex operation.

He did try to live a normal life as much as possible, so one day he borrowed the car and went to visit some friends in town. Charlie naturally tagged along, and as they turned the corner to go down the street, he was clinging to his favorite spot on the roof, wings wide-spread in the wind.

Later that day, Ronny returned with the car, but Charlie wasn’t with him, which wasn’t really that unusual. He was scheduled to tour the town office about that time of day, so I wasn’t worried. When it became dark and he still hadn’t come home, I was definitely concerned.

Charlie was not only very much a creature of habit, he was also a true “Homing Pigeon” in every sense of the word. He had never spent a night outside since the day he came to me, and was always right there ready to come inside at dark, no matter what time of year.

Darkness comes early in November, especially as far North as we are, and it was very cold and windy that night. By six o’clock I was out driving around in the car, hoping to attract him to it, wherever he was. I hit every street in town several times, returning home every once in a while to see if he had showed up there yet. By eight-thirty I needed to get my two children into bed, and Ronny couldn’t help that night, as he was also having an insulin reaction. I gave up the search.

The next day is etched in my memory now, as I have so many things to link to it. Ronny woke up in bad shape the next day, and I had to get his mother and brother to come and get him to take him to the hospital. I had to go to work in the classroom that day, and I couldn’t take him myself. From Humboldt, he was rushed on to the University Hospital in Saskatoon, where he remained for the rest of his short life.

I headed off for work as soon as they were gone, but as I crossed the bridge west of town on my way to Englefeld where I worked, I noticed a grey Pigeon lying dead on the road. Already late for work, I determined to stop and check it on my way home after school.

That was a long day as I remember, and by dismissal time I was anxious to get going. I drove home with a dark sense of foreboding that what I might find was not good. Pulling over to the shoulder of the road, I walked over to the body, which was right where it had been that morning. Sure enough, it was Charlie. That fat left leg left no doubt that it was him. He didn’t seem to have a mark on him, but I could see he was busted up pretty bad inside. I put him on the seat beside me and took him home. I just kept thinking, he was so tame that he probably saw that car coming at him and thought, “they’ll go around”.

We were all broken-hearted, but what can you do when these things happen? We grieved over him as if he were a lost friend, and his name has come up so many times over the years that I know he will never be forgotten. I’m even writing a song about him. We kept him over the winter frozen as he was, until spring thawed the ground again. We buried him in the backyard under the birch tree that was a favorite. It was taller than the rest, and he could see what was coming better.

A month later Ronny died of Kidney failure in hospital. The medical examiner discovered that the source of his infection was the fistula, or artificial vein they had inserted to make dialysis easier. If they had just muddled along with his own veins he would have been healthy enough to get the transplant.

I never got to say goodbye to Ronny or Charlie, and I loved them both. Ronny was the kindest, most generous man I ever knew, and died with all his belongings in one small cardboard box. I have his boots, and his hat, and a million memories. We planted two Pine trees on a little island in the middle of Lake Charon in his memory. They are now ten meters high, and the only two pine trees on the island, so anyone can spot them.

People thought I was crazy to have a pigeon loose in the house, and even crazier to take in a broken down old cowboy who had nowhere else to go. From where I am now, I see them as two of the best decisions I ever made in life and don’t regret a minute of it. I am a firm believer in Serendipity, and try my best to hear the knock at the door, no matter how faint it is. I hope you will too.

Doctor Bob