It isn’t every day that we get a call from the Royal Navy asking for help. And it doesn’t often happen that a very small pigeon chick is found on an aircraft carrier either.
When the chick was found it was taken to the medical and dental team on HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Determined to help save this youngster the medics did some research to find our how to rear the baby.
Pigeons are vegetarian, so the ship’s kitchen crew was asked to help and provided cornflakes and porridge oats. The chick was too small to eat this dry food, so it was mixed with hot water and stirred till it formed a paste.
There was still a problem getting this mixture into the eager squab, but ingeniously the team cut the end off a 20ml syringe.
Apparently Percy soon learnt to poke his beak into the syringe, and slowly the team pressed the plunger as Percy gobbled up the food.
This food served Percy well. When we collected him from Coulport, he was in good condition with healthy feathers. He still had some yellow baby down on his head and back.
There was no doubt that Percy had been a popular stowaway on the ship. There were six or seven medics in the car park to hand him over. The pigeon had obviously enjoyed lots of attention.
Percy has now moved into an aviary with other young pigeons. Soon he will become one of the flock and be ready for release.
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