Above is the original artwork for the cover of my book; and

Below is the finished cover.

Introduction:

For the whole of my adult life I have been an avid reader and for the majority of that time I have absorbed some 1,000 pages a week, equating to 2 or 3 books every week. I have never kept a diary; but for over 40 years I have kept detailed journals in respect of holidays and hobbies.

Just over 32 years ago, in 1985, I wrote my first short story; I wrote my second short story in 1992 and then forgot about both of them until I came across the original drafts in 2011. Finding those stories rekindled my interest in writing and since that time I have written another 18 short stories and 3 short books for family circulation only.

Around the middle of 2017 (following the suggestion from a fellow Dovecote Spot member), I decided to expand my endeavour’s to writing a book on dove keeping, a hobby which has absorbed a large amount of my leisure time for over 5 years. Originally I wrote the book for my own interest but have since been sufficiently encouraged to offer it for sale.

Within my book I have tried to pre-empt and answer every possible question that a beginner or novice dove keeper might ask. If after reading my book you have a question or would like further explanation on a particular topic then please email me;

roadrunner@aam-tai-pan.co.uk

My Book:

My paperback book is printed in 'A5' (normal paperback size), and consists of 33 chapters and 283 pages. To enable each individual chapter to be a 'stand-alone' there is a small amount of crossover, and occasionally you will be directed to other chapters.

Here is the Chapter Index:

Chapter Sections:

With the exception of Chapters 1. and 32. (The Prologue and epilogue respectively), each Chapter has a number of different 'Sections'.

As an example here are the chapter sections in Chapter 18. Sexing young doves:

• Introduction.
• The male egg is always laid first and the second egg is the    female.
• The male mating dance or ritual.
• Physical size.
• Distance apart of the pelvic bones.
• Length of toes.
• The female squat.
• Begging for food.
• The sexual act.
• Egg sitting duties.
• Flying style.
• Noted pairs.
• The mirror test.
• Keeper experience.
• Summary.

Chapter 19. Homing doves

Here are the Section contents of Chapter 19. Homing doves:

• Introduction.
• Navigation.
• Ring before homing.
• Homing.
• Types of homing methods.
• Releasing your doves.
• Our personal homing results.
• Summary. 

All Chapters (except the Prologue and Epilogue), start with an introduction and end with a summary:

Here is the Introduction to Chapter 19. Homing:

Many birds posses a homing instinct which generally means "a bird's ability to find its way back to the place where it was hatched." This explains why you do not need to home any chicks born in your own dovecote or other provided habitation. 

As the title suggests this book is predominantly about doves which are all descended from the 'Blue Rock Pigeon' or to give them their Latin name, 'Columba Livia'.

Doves are members of the Pigeon family but not all members of that family possess a 'Homing Instinct'. In some species such as racing pigeons, the instinct is highly developed. In the 'ornamental dove species' it is often, to all intents and purposes, almost non existent. If you want to keep ornamental doves then you will normally need to keep them confined in a cage or aviary.

Ornamental pigeons often possess a homing instinct and many dove keepers have converted to ornamental pigeons such as the Old German Owl and the King Pigeon. As I have explained in Chapter 6. - Is it a dove or a pigeon. I am quite happy for people to call themselves dove keepers if they keep such pigeons in a dovecote or dove-loft. If they keep them in a pigeon loft then they are 'Pigeon Keepers'!

Here is the Summary to Chapter 19. Homing:

Some types of doves and pigeons have a natural homing instinct which makes them want to return to where they were hatched. If you want to keep free flying doves you have to break this original instinct and make them became homed to a different location; i.e. the dovecote in your garden. To do this you have to confine them in their new home for a period long enough so that they adopt your habitation as their new home, thus losing the instinct to return to where they were hatched.

Various factors, as previously described, will help towards a successful homing but you will never know if it is successful until you take the net off and allow them free flight. If your homing is successful then they should return within a couple of hours of being released but if some get lost, they may take quite a long time, several days or even weeks, to find their way back. And of course some will never return.

To introduce you to my book here is Chapter 1.

Chapter 1. Prologue:

Thank you for buying my book!

Planning permission:

Perhaps the first thing to know is "do you need 'planning permission' for a dovecote?" The answer is, "it's highly unlikely," but if you live in any sort of protected area then it might be worth contacting your local planning department, who will often give you an answer over the phone.

In the unlikely event that a dovecote on a pole is not allowed, then it might be for visual reasons related to the area you live in. The next question to ask the planning department is; "are dove-lofts allowed?" after all in many cases a dove-loft is only a shed with some 'wild' birds in it!

History:

Keeping doves in the United Kingdom has been a pastime since as early as the 12th Century, although areas of Egypt and Iran domesticated them over 2000 years ago.

Originally doves and pigeons were kept in large flights in large purpose built brick, stone or wooden etc. dovecotes or dove-lofts where they were bred for eggs and food. Those that were bred for food were eaten from 4 weeks of age at which time they were almost as large as adults and their meat was still tender.  More recently they have been kept as pets. 

The Latin name for Doves is 'Columba' and they are a branch of the pigeon family. It is generally accepted that their family ancestors are the 'Blue Rock Pigeons' - 'Columba Livia' which, even today, are still found in most parts of the world. 

My own involvement:

My first involvement with pigeons was in the early fifties and I kept them for many years before leaving home to join the military.

My involvement with doves is more recent and I have been keeping them since early 2013. At first I jumped in with both feet and expended a lot of; time, money and effort, before arriving at what I consider to be the perfect method of dove keeping. "Perfect for me that is!"

General:

"So you want to keep doves? Hopefully you have not taken the plunge yet? The first question to ask yourself is why you want to keep them? Perhaps it's because of the spectacular display as they circle your garden before coming in to land in a perfect formation. Perhaps you want to observe life in a small community, but can't be bothered to watch 'Coronation Street'. Yes! our small flight has everything going on, including; petty squabbles, wife swapping and bullying etc. Our flight keeps us continuously amused and we spend hours in the garden watching them.

Note.

Many people, including some established dove and pigeon keepers, will tell you that doves mate for life. From my own observations this is simply just not true. Some of our male doves have had more wives than Henry the Eighth, and cheating is rife.

Of course there is a downside to dove keeping!  They require looking after, which includes some expenditure and an amount of labour, the latter varying considerably depending on the habitation method(s) you employ. 

The good news is that they do not interfere with your existing lifestyle. They will cope quite happily during your holiday absence with little or no attention. Under certain circumstances they can, to a great extent, be self financing or supporting but that's not why the majority of people keep doves, rather we keep them for the pleasure they give us.

I should point out that my working life has been as an engineer, not as a professor of literature. I'm confident that you will find some grammatical errors within these pages! Indeed some of them are deliberate, for example it is common for a quotation mark (") to follow a full stop (.) but if you are writing an imperial measurement such as one inch it would be written as 1". If it was at the end of a sentence it would look silly written as 1." and it would lose its meaning. In fact I find the whole subject of quotation / exclamation marks to be quite confusing.

In a similar manner I tend to take liberties with the forward slash (/). There again it wasn't introduced into the English language in its current form until the early 1960's and I was a young adult by then and intent on doing things my way. I trust that these personal foibles will not spoil your enjoyment of my book.

After reading my book you should have all the information you need to decide whether or not you are going to keep doves, and perhaps more importantly, how you are going to keep them. I hope that you will start at the front of the book and read it through to the end. Please read the epilogue last.

When reading my book please bear in mind that it is not a reference book. Although it will tell you most, if not all of what you need to know about doves. It is essentially my story based on my own dove keeping experiences.

Finally; in the opinion of my dear wife I am an 'enigma.' Whilst I am a bit of a perfectionist, (I like things to be aesthetically appealing and will work hard to maintain that standard), it appears that I also have a 'lazy gene' and will go out of my way to find an easy way of doing things. After much experimentation my dove keeping is now as hassle free and as easy as I can get it, albeit it is perhaps just a little bit unconventional. That is why the epilogue is titled 'I did it my way.'

RoadRunner

November 2017

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