A racing pigeon twice attacked by hawks has been rescued from the sea by
a paddle boarder.
Tory Pigott was out with friends when she spotted the injured pigeon off
Devon's south coast at Ladram Bay.
The hapless bird had originally set off from Dorset a month before, but
was found injured in Plymouth and nursed back to health and released
again.
The pigeon was thought to have been attacked by a hawk.
Racing pigeon enthusiast Terry Luscombe, from Plymouth, looked after the
bird for three weeks and "got him back to fitness" before releasing him
on Monday to return to Hertfordshire.
Ms Pigott said: "We suddenly heard a flapping sound in the water and saw
this pigeon desperately trying to crawl up the side of the rocks."
She jumped into the water to rescue the pigeon which was "completely sodden" and "distressed" with a cut to its neck. Ms Pigott then used the pigeon's identification number to trace the bird's owners, Ray Eccles and his son Brendan from Baldock, near Stevenage in Hertfordshire.
Brendan Eccles said the pigeon was released in a race from Blandford, Dorset, on 01 August and should have been home "in a few hours". He said the four-month-old pigeon could have become disoriented and headed in the wrong direction. Mr Luscombe said it appeared from the cut to the pigeon's neck he had been the victim of a second hawk attack that resulted in him landing in the water. Ray Eccles eventually sent a courier to collect the bird.
There's a news video here.
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