Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"....I have opportunities for observing the gradual degeneration of Blue Rock-Pigeon from a throughbread to a mongrel.Away from mixed city communities and the lofts of the fanciers,the Blue Rock is true to its type-in places,it is true to its name as well,and lives among precipitous rocks.
...Such birds are proportionately larger (because of longer and less tightly shut tails) than domestic breeds that resemble them (say,the Homer) and stand lower to the ground.Their stance is somewhat crouched,and they run swiftly along the ground unlike domestic pigeons.I think their flight features are softer than the racing pigeons-they do not make that laughing noise when they take off quite so audibly.And their flight is distinctive,swift,direct and low in the air-they do not circle much and fly point to point.The wing action is less smooth than in Homers and more up-and-down,more like a Tumblers.

...When Emperor Babar stopped his conquest for a moment to comment on the differences in looks and voice between the Rock Pigeons of his native land and India,he was better placed than I ,for they were less interbred here then.

All breeds of domestic pigeons have evolved from the Blue Rock and if you allow half-a-dozen fancy breeds to mingle freely,their progeny will revert ultimately to the ancestral rock type.
...Wild pigeons are canny birds.A multitude of predators seek them in the air and on their breeding grounds.The fact that they are still numerous is proof of their wariness.But,of course one must remember how rapidly they breed.-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 4 March 1951 in The Sunday Statesman)