Homing pigeons stretching their wings in front of Zhengyang gate
It’s 4 pm and the skies above Beijing are filled with more than a dozen flocks of pigeons swirling in large arcs over the city buildings. Round and round they go, as far as you can see. Dozens of groups of maybe 20 or 30 pigeons each. We were watching them out of our hotel window, wondering what was going on. Then we realised – 4 o’clock must be exercise time for the hundreds of homing pigeons living in lofts all around Beijing.
The much-maligned “rat with wings” is a common pet here in China, and keeping homing pigeons seems to be a popular hobby, especially among men. After all, older men are the ones who fly bird kites and walk around carrying little bamboo bird cages. Maybe keeping homing pigeons is where they start.
A pigeon owner calling his flock back home
Intrigued as we were by all this commotion outside, we watched to see just exactly how a pigeon owner calls his flock back after their afternoon constitutional. All in all, the birds were in the air for about half an hour, with their owner watching from his ladder next to their roost. After 20 or so minutes, he began to swirl his stick in the air in large circles, bang it on the roof or clap his hands. You’d think this would scare the birds away, but gradually their arc got smaller and smaller, and their altitude lower and lower. With each circuit, a few pigeons would land on the roof and waddle back into their cage, until finally all the pigeons were safely home and locked away for the night (much to the displeasure of the two cats slinking along the rooftops, waiting for that one hapless pigeon to land in the wrong place).
All clear – the first lot of incoming pigeons
0 Responses to “Peak Hour in the Skies”