Domestic Aviary?

It's as if the neighborhood birds have deemed my house their aviary. Today I walked in my room and found this!

Yes...it was on my bed! If you remember, we found a hummingbird a few months ago in our kitchen. I think the bird startled me as much as I startled it. It started flapping its wings, wildly flying in all directions. I knew it wouldn't hurt me, but my heart was racing and I was ducking to avoid being knocked in the face.

Notice the ankle tag...a homing pigeon of all things! I have to admit that I was grateful it was this nice looking, well kept pigeon instead of the nasty greyish pigeons that roam the neighborhood--but I still washed my bedspread and all my sheets!

I tried to open the door to our balcony so it would go outside. I'm sure this is how it got in--earlier in the day to let the cool breeze in it was opened a crack. I had shut the door hours before so I don't know how long it was roaming my room...long enough to leave bird droppings for me to clean up!

Unfortunately, instead of flying out the door to the outside it flew out of my bedroom door and into the foyer of our house. It perched itself on the landing about 12 ft high. I tried to get it to fly down by throwing socks in its direction, but it just flew wildly about knocking into the skylight windows. I feared the safety of the bird and my windows so just left it.

I called Albuquerque 311 (city information line) and told them my problem. They dispatched someone from animal control/rescue. The bird perched in that spot for three hours before someone came. The man from animal control climbed a ladder with a net in his hand and caught the pigeon within minutes. His bird catching skills were rather impressive. It was flying all over and I didn't think he'd ever get it into that net.

He put it in a cage in his truck and said they would use the tag to contact its owner. I'd really like to know how far from home that pigeon was!