Magdalena - One Year On

Magdalena the Neptune Pigeon
Originally uploaded by Mike at Sea

We've all heard about ships cats, pirates parrots and rats leaving a sinking ship. It's not always man who goes to sea. Ships cats and pirates parrots mostly had no choice, rats just wanted free food. Of course in the case of the cats it's bad luck to kick a cat off a boat, it should always leave by it's own free will.

When the boat was in the Gulf of Mexico, a pigeon joined the crew, and stayed on during the transit down to Brasil. It had two rings on it at the start, which lead me to believe it was a racing pigeon. One ring was yellow, which is now lost, and the other, metallic, has the markings "FCC 014685" and the year 2008. Research into what these markings mean has revealed that she is in fact from a Cuban pigeon racers flock.

It quickly became apparent "it" was a "she" after a small nest was found in the navigation frame with three wee eggs. Having settled in so well, and with the deck crew feeding her, the eggs hatched and three young chicks appeared. On arrival in Rio de Janeiro, the three left the vessel, but Mom declined the chance of a new life in the tropics and stayed aboard. She has been here ever since and become an accepted member of the crew,

Magdalena, in fact, takes an observatory role in all operations on the boat and loves to be around people. When there are crane ops she will strut about the shipments as though checking the slinging and address labels. When there is back deck work, she will walk about the work area, hop on cables and snooze on toolboxes. Her favourite perch is on the lee-side sill of the bridge windows.

Her diet consists of bread crumbs from buns, lentils and whatever seeds can be got from the galley stores. She always has a dish of water. When the deck crew hose down the deck she has a wash or in the cooling water pool on top of the paint store. She did pick up a limp at one point but appears to have recovered from that. It would seem that her weight dropped somehwat over the year, but not dangerously so. She stills flies about and will do the odd circuit of the vessel on calmer days.

Although not on the crew list, I think the captain has finally accepted the fact even though she craps all over the boat, she is a proper Neptunian.