My birdbook names our English city pigeons as the London pigeon. What about the proud tradition of pigeon-fancying in the North?

Look back to last May for a photo to accompany the poem of the albino pigeon.

I hope the website will soon be mended so that I can load more photos and read your comments. Till then, email me at dunedesertplanet@btinternet.com

THE ALBINO PIGEON

The albino pigeon shuffled its feet
And drooped its snowy head.
Limp and thirsty in the show-tent’s heat,
It wished that it was dead.

Around it, shades of pearly grey
And subtle pink and green
Strutted and preened the time away,
Impatient to be seen.

Fantails and perfect pouters,
Blue-greys, flashes or bars,
Parading without doubt, as
They waited for rosettes and stars.

What rosettes for a milk-white misfit,
Plain, with never a glimmer?
While every pearly outfit
Courts the light with its shimmer?

Judges compare the pearly greys
And their collars of green and pink.
Blanko is slumped in a dismal daze,
Till it jolts itself to think:

“Stand up! Stand up for simplicity,
Untouched, unmarked, unstarted!
Don’t let me be charged with complicity
In my own defeat, faint-hearted!

“Folk will grow sick of the shades of grey
And every inbred shadow.
‘Glad of the brightness of white,’ they’ll say.
Suddenly, I’ll be the fellow.”

Judges will give rosettes and stars
To the perfect greys they love,
But at last the albino pigeon
Takes the prize: for a pure white dove!

THE PIGEONS’ GARLAND

Army of butlers in sober grey,
They browse across the lawns.
Quiet and sensible: no heroes they!
A grey existence, no thorns.

Quiet coo and gentle flutter,
A calm, contented throng,
Collecting crumbs from path or gutter;
Clean sweep as they stroll along.

Oh, the tedium of crossing the lawns!
Ceaseless patrol for every crumb;
Cooing closeness before day dawns,
Planning the parade, when tourists come.

No wonder they’re grey! Yet on tourist shoulders
Gentle birds make generous friends.
Not much squabbling. Only the bolder
Perch and peck. Supply never ends.

Endless tourists and endless birds;
Endless handfuls of seed.
Endless delight! No need for words;
Relaxing smiles as they feed.

Glint of pink and sheen of green
Among the endless grey;
A hint of rainbow magic, seen
On friendly birds, whose day

Is spent in patient duty,
Back and forth across the lawns;
This shimmer of jewelled beauty
The faithful neck adorns.