Denaby to USA Via Cannes!

When Mr Tom Ball’s dark chequer pigeon was released in Cannes in June 20^th, he expected be back at his home in Rossington Street, Denaby Main, within 10 or 11 hours. Another of his birds liberated at the same time returned to the loft, taking second prize in the Handsworth Federation race, within a few hours – but there was still no sign of the two-year-old dark chequer.

On Saturday morning. July 14^th Mr Ball had Ball almost given up all hope of ever seeing the bird again. “I thought it had gone down in the water,” he said. “But then I received a letter from Mr J. Selby Thomas, secretary of the National homing union Council, telling me that the bird had turned up in Portsmouth, Virginia, on the east coast of America. It had been taken in by a fisherman, who must have taken it to a local pigeon flyer and breeder, Mr Victor Saunders. He contacted Mr Thomas.”

Although it is not yet a certain how the bird reached the United States, it is probable that it landed on a ship

in a letter to Mr Saunders, MrBall told him to keep the bird. “It will cost too much to send it back” he said.

Mr Ball who owns 30 birds did not have any birds liberated in the recent water flight from Poitiers, in which hundreds of pigeons are thought to have perished.