Years ago, at my hawkwatch site in Granville, MA, a racing pigeon landed almost at our feet, then moved around the hilltop lookout. With my spotting scope, I was able to read the serial number and phone number printed on the bird’s band. I called the number and told the woman who answered that we had found the bird, which turned out to belong to a gentleman… in Ontario! She asked me whether we couldn’t capture it and “move it a little closer” to home. I explained that we were hundreds of miles to the east in western Massachusetts. She was horrified to learn that the bird had chosen to land in the middle of a hawkwatch site: “Oh dear, pigeons don’t get along so well with hawks.” Indeed — despite our best efforts, we couldn’t catch the bird, and a few weeks later a young girl visiting the hilltop found a pile of feathers lying on the ground together with the band. John Weeks North Granby