I have owned many Birmingham Rollers that have finished up as hopeless roll downs. They simply went into a spin that was not always a true and perfect roll, but was completely out of control, resulting in the poor bird hitting the ground, or whatever else was there.
Very often I had to put up with a year of quite mediocre tumbling and then suddenly they would become completely out of control, plummeting down from about 300 feet vertically. Sometimes I gained the impression that they were desperately trying to get out of their spin. Sometimes, clearly, they made no effort at all choosing how they came down, to strike the first thing available. Surprisingly, very often, if they hit tallish grass, weeds, herbage etc, they would appear to be uninjured. Nevertheless, I noticed that such crashed pigeons would remain down and make no attempt to fly home for several hours. Down among the weeds, plants and shrubs they were often seen by cats and that was the end of them.
If they were down there all night, which very often they were, then all kinds of things could happen to them. Rats, stoats, weasels, cats, dogs, foxes and not least of all, people, could take them.
It was with this in mind that I went to collect a Roller cock that I had seen crashing into a very large bed of very fine Russell Lupins. These were in a back garden, at that time being attended by a little old lady. I arrived at the gate and explained and she readily gave permission for me to seek out the pigeon. There he was, cowered down amid the tall lupins. I caught him very easily and turned to leave. However, the old lady said, 'Why has the bird fallen like that; is it a young one and unable to fly?'
I really ought to have said 'Yes love, and a very good afternoon to you.' Of course, I could not resist giving her a lecture on the roll factor. She listened carefully and then said, 'Well, I have never heard anything so cruel in my life. You deliberately encourage these birds to injure themselves!'
I said, 'Well Madam, I do try very hard to avoid their extremes.'
'Well, you obviously have not tried hard enough, please leave my garden. If I owned a dog, I would set it on you!'
I had upset a rather decent old woman.
I was never free of the roll-down factor during my time with Rollers and I was never pleased with the fact. I had a silver self dun cock, presented to me by Bill Barrett of Bromsgrove. One of the best, if not the very best Roller man in the world. As a yearling he rolled down and must have ruptured his internal air sacs. He puffed up like a balloon and an enormous bubble of trapped air was under his skin, around his neck, back and belly. I punctured the skin and squeezed out the air. I instantly wrote to Bill and asked if he had any experience of this. He answered straight away, saying that he had only known one case - it was no use puncturing, just leave it alone and it would deflate in time. This is, in fact, is what happened. I have never seen nor yet heard of a similar case since.
With my present pigeons, rolling down is almost entirely unknown - four cases in 18 years.
Read more in the June 2008 issue of Feathered World
