Ménage à Trois
One morning when I was feeding our birds in the coop, I noticed that two of our pigeons were moving as though drunk.
“José, have you seen these pigeons?” I asked my partner who, having been raised in rural Cuba, had much more knowledge of birds than I. “They’re unsteady.”
José picked up one of the pigeons, turned it over in his hand, then set it upright on his palm, but it teetered over.
“I think you should call the vet that specializes in exotic birds,” José suggested, “… in case ….”
“Are you thinking it might be contagious?” I asked.
“Other than these two, the others look okay,” José observed. “With over eighty pigeons, chickens and ducks, we can’t take a chance. Call the vet.”
Fortunately, our vet could see me — and the two pigeons — that afternoon. I placed them in two separate cages and drove the hour to the vet’s office.
“Your pigeons caught a virus, probably parasites in the droppings of creatures, like mice, rats ….”
“Chipmunks or squirrels?” I asked.
“Possibly,” the vet said. “No matter; the remedy is the same. Sprinkle a canine de-wormer on the seed you feed them and bring them back here, after a week.”
On my drive home, I stopped at our local Tractor Supply store and bought de-wormer, then hurried back to replace the pigeons in the coop and sprinkle the de-wormer over the seed we feed them.
Every day, on entering the coop, I anxiously looked for the two affected pigeons. One couldn’t fly; the other could fly, but both walked unsteadily. Except for these two, none of the other pigeons or birds appeared to have caught the virus. During the week, the pigeon that was able to fly, died, and at the end of the week, I brought the second pigeon back to the vet.
“I’m not surprised one died,” the vet told me during the examination. “The virus is usually deadly and very contagious. As for this one,” he flipped the pigeon upright in his palm, “… it appears stable. Continue sprinkling the de-wormer on the food and call me in a week.”
In the days that followed, José and I kept watch on the affected pigeon who I named Vittorio.
“He seems to be steadier,” José said. “I think the de-wormer is working.” By the end of the week, Vittorio was noticeably better and the vet advised us to stop sprinkling the de-wormer on the seed as none of our other birds appeared to have been affected by the virus.
Every morning when I entered the coop, there was Vittorio, waiting for me on a low ledge at the entry, alone. Before he caught the virus, he had a mate, but she abandoned him when he became unstable. Cured, we thought she would return to him, but it seems she had mated with another pigeon and would have nothing to do with Vittorio. He tried to win her back, cooing and flapping his wings, as male pigeons do when courting. All his attempts were in vain; Vittorio remained alone. And, none of the other pigeons appeared to be interested in him either.
Not long afterward, Vittorio realized there was a small gap between the door to the coop and the entry room in back. When I entered to clean the coop, Vittorio would hop off his perch and sneak through this opening, flying onto the balcony above the back room. Perched there, he would spend his time cooing. All attempts on my part to entice him down and back into the coop were as futile as his, to win back his mate. I would whistle like a hawk, bang on the balcony with my broom, but Vittorio stubbornly remained on the balcony. I finally decided to let him remain there. If he chose to come down and reenter the coop, he could, by sneaking back through the small gap between the door and its jamb. Often, he would fly onto the railing of the backroom stairs and wait for me to open the door. He would then fly back into the coop by himself. It became a game: I would wait for him to fly onto the railing, him telling me that it was time for him to fly back into the coop, and I would open the door and say,
“Vittorio, go back in,” and he would.
But both José and I were feeling sad, that Vittorio didn’t have a mate and that none of the other pigeons would socialize with him. Then, one day, several months after he had recovered from the virus, José told me,
“Vittorio has found a mate.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I saw him hop up the stairs to the hayloft above the horse stalls with one of the female pigeons.”
In the coop, Vittorio joined his new mate in her nesting box, spending their nights there and their afternoons in the hayloft. As she was a recent “widow”, her mate having been snatched by a hawk, she was not in the mood to accept Vittorio who had to work hard to win her favor.
I was happy for Vittorio, but also sad, as he no longer waited for me on the ledge as I entered the coop.
It was not more than a few weeks later that José told me at lunch, “Vittorio is now courting two pigeons. Remember the pigeonette that we allowed to be hatched?” We had a birth-control policy, to strictly control the pigeon population, but we missed taking the egg from underneath one couple and rather than abort the birth, we allowed the couple to hatch its egg.
“This afternoon I saw it in the hayloft with Vittorio and the pigeon he’s courting,” José informed me.
During the following days, we observed Vittorio flying to the hayloft with the two pigeons where they stayed until late in the afternoon. The three would then fly back to the coop where Vittorio and his mate would occupy her box and the pigeonette would roost where it had made its perch since leaving its parents’ nest earlier in the year.
“It’s not an agreeable arrangement for the pigeonette to have to perch away from Vittorio and his mate. They should be together nights,” I told José.
The following morning, José affixed a second box to the one occupied by Vittorio and his mate. Later that afternoon, when all the pigeons had returned to the coop, Vittorio and his mate were in her box, and in the box José had affixed to it that morning was the pigeonette.
Now I was happy. “They’ve formed a ménage à trois,” I told José.
E.P. Lande was born in Montreal, but has lived most of his life in the south of France and Vermont, where he now lives with his partner, writing and caring for more than 100 animals, many of which are rescues. Previously, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa where he served as Vice-Dean of his faculty, and he has owned and managed country inns and free-standing restaurants. Since submitting less than two years ago, 47 of his stories have been accepted by publications in countries on five continents.