Fairest Of The Fowl

To say that De Senna, the most expensive racing pigeon ever brought to the United States, is worth his weight in gold is to underestimate the value of this bird. The Dutch-born, gray- and silver-feathered champion, winner of the Netherlands' National Ace Pigeon award in 1992, weighs all of 14 or 15 ounces. Last January, Campbell Strange, one of America's premier pigeon breeders, purchased De Senna for $33,000, more than six times the value of his weight in gold.

De Senna now lives on the pigeon world's Park Avenue, the stud building of Strange's 111-acre Oak Haven Farms in the Texas ranch country outside Fort Worth. Residing in the buildings' 16 pens is a veritable Who's Who of avian superstars—Ace Van Bommel, Lichte Orleans, Bliksem, Super 239—most of them purchased by Strange for $20,000 or more apiece. The birds' diet and physical condition are monitored obsessively; their pens are cleaned at least once a day; their rooms are climate-controlled. In return the birds fertilize eggs that make the golden goose's legendary offerings seem paltry: Each of their offspring sells for $1,500 to $2,500.

"These are not your average disease-ridden street pigeons," says Strange, 54, cradling a down-covered, three-week-old bird in his palm. "City birds are nothing but feathers and bones. Racing birds are tremendous athletes, highly muscled, rigorously trained, the very essence of health and hygiene. These are the pigeons everybody wants."

When Strange says "everybody," he is referring to the world's one million pigeon racers, better known as fanciers. Only 20,000 live in the U.S., most of them in California and the Northeast, but their fervor is such that they support four magazines, two national organizations and a soon-to-open pigeon Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

Europeans are even more feather headed. In Belgium there are 100,000 fanciers in a country of roughly 10 million, and the newspapers' sports sections are filled with bird stories. In the United Kingdom there are a quarter of a million fanciers—even the royal family owns a flock. Fanciers are also found throughout Asia, the Middle East, northern Africa and the South Pacific, making pigeon racing one of the few truly global sports.

But fanciers say that pigeon racing is more than a mere sport; it's a way of life. Assembling a team of top-notch racers is a herculean task. Successful fanciers—the majority of whom are middle-aged males—may spend as much as eight hours a day with their birds.

As in horse racing, bloodlines help predict which youngsters are likely to become champions. A first-time fancier will build a backyard loft and purchase a supply of pigeons from someone who is offering birds descended from superior stock. Someone, for example, like Strange.

The birds must then be trained. A racing bird is a homing pigeon, which means that it will always return to its home loft, even from distances of more than 1,000 miles. This homing instinct is still not fully understood; one theory is that pigeons navigate by sensing the earth's magnetic field. In order to ready a bird for the rigors of competition, fanciers spend months using various motivational techniques; a popular one is the so-called widowhood system, in which birds are separated from their mates until after the completion of a long flight, thus coaxing every ounce of speed out of the pigeon.

A finely trained racing pigeon is an astonishing animal. Its body feels as firm as an inflated bicycle tire. The bird's massive pectoral muscles power seven wing strokes per second for nonstop flights lasting as long as 15 hours. A pigeon can reach speeds of more than 60 miles per hour, while its heart beats 600 times per minute.

Pigeon fanciers race in leagues called clubs, all of whose members live in the same geographical area. Clubs throughout the U.S. hold weekly competitions during the spring and fall at distances of from 100 to 600 miles. The night before a race each breeder selects a team of birds, usually about a dozen, to enter. At the club's headquarters the pigeons' legs are banded with rubber countermarks; then the birds are caged and placed on trucks with the other teams—there can be several thousand birds in a race—and driven to the starting point.