Elvis
This is Elvis.
All my breeding pigeons have a name. This name corresponds mostly to the pigeon’s attitude, its origin or its feather colours. Years ago I had a female that was always complicated when it came to pairing. At the beginning she always showed a certain distaste towards all the males. So I called her nun.
Now to the male Elvis. He hatched on the 16th of April in 2002. During flying he always came last into the pigeonry. He flew three competitions and survived all raptor attacks unharmed. Very early he was sexually active in comparison to his mates and he had only the females in mind. While flying he was always with the females. That’s why he got the name ELVIS, as it is known that the real Elvis not only was a good singer but also a major part of the female world craved him.
That he had the right name he always proved after the molting. When my Tipplers are finished with the molting, I let all the young Tipplers to the breeding males. They are at that time alone in the breeding pigeonry and I let the boxes open. Every young Tippler that is in a male’s box several times is with 100% certainty a female. For me this is the safest method to find out which of the young are males and which are females. The young females then go back to the female part of the pigeonry. The young males stay in the breeding pigeonry until breeding. Over the years I perceived that Elvis always was the first to have young females in his box. It was not seldom that during this period he had 2-3 females in his box. Other males did not have any success at all.
On the 27th of February 2012 he surprised me for the umpteenth time. On the 23rd of February 2012 I paired my Tipplers. On pair I had newly brought together. The female is a 09er and never had been in breeding before, the male is an 11. On the first day they only had sight contact. The male displayed all the time but the female took no notice. During the next two days they were alone in a separate room. But that too didn’t help. The female did not want anything to do with the male. So I brought the two back into the breeding pigeonry and left the box open. Both flew to a perch and cleaned themselves. Elvis who had observed the whole thing flew next to the female and courted her. The female looked at Elvis, dropped her head and crouched. Elvis flew to his box and the female followed. The young male did not understand the world anymore, probably he thought: what does grandpa have that I don’t? When the young female landed in Elvis’ box she was promptly chased away by “Mrs Elvis”. She flew back 2 times until I caught her and brought her to the flying pigeons. Now she can fly another season. Maybe she will get another male next spring. The young male got another female which thought him very nice.
I would really like to know what makes Elvis so charming that he is still attractive to the ladies in his old age. From the outside I see no difference between him and the other males. But then I’m no female pigeon!
Walter Stettler CH Binningen www.flugtippler.ch