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Bob the Geordie pigeon takes a wrong turn … and ends up 4,300 miles away in Alabama

Bob the pigeon took a 4,300 mile detour on his way to Gateshead, instead ending up in Alabama
Bob the pigeon took a 4,300 mile detour on his way to Gateshead, instead ending up in Alabama

It is 380 miles as the crow flies from Guernsey to Gateshead but, in the case of Bob the racing pigeon, it has ended up being quite a bit longer.

The Geordie flyer turned up 4,300 miles away in Alabama, having apparently hitched a transatlantic ride aboard a ship.

Bob was released on the Channel Island of Guernsey three weeks ago as part of a race home to Tyneside that should have taken 10 hours. Bob, however, did not return home with the rest of the flock.

Somewhere over the Channel, he appeared to have got lost and ended up on a ship.

"He wouldn't have flown all that way, I think he has probably jumped on to a ship," Alan Todd, Bob’s owner, told the BBC.

"He was covered in oil – it could have been an oil tanker.”

The Channel is the world’s busiest shipping lane, with more than 600 large vessels passing through it each day - including dozens of tankers travelling from oil fields around the world to Europe.

Alabama, meanwhile, is an oil-producing and refining US state on the Gulf of Mexico and is home to the major port of Mobile.

When Bob finally landed in the US, he showed up in the garden of a man in Mexia, Monroe County, and refused to leave, despite the owner’s best efforts at shooing him away.

Concerned, he phoned the Monroe County Alabama Animal Shelter, where Megan Bryan and Monica Hardy took him in. They said he was healthy, but a little underweight from his travels.

Bob with staff at Monroe County Alabama Animal Shelter
Bob with staff at Monroe County Alabama Animal Shelter

For most pigeons, that might have proved the end of the story - but Bob is no ordinary rock dove. As a specially bred homing pigeon, he is thought to be worth about £1,000 and, like any pedigree animal, he is microchipped.

Ms Bryan and Ms Hardy were able to scan Bob’s chip and track him, via the North of England Homing Union, to his owner, Mr Todd. The two were then reunited via video call.

"They are obviously looking after him very well,” said Mr Todd, adding that Bob “didn’t look in a good state” when he first saw him, but that the bird now “looks a lot better”.

Mr Todd is now planning to fly out to Alabama to bring Bob home to Winlaton.

Alan Todd, Bob's owner, at his pigeon loft
Alan Todd, Bob's owner, at his pigeon loft

The two women at the shelter said: “He's appearing well, he's doing great."

It is common practice in the world of pigeon racing to take animals across the Channel to France for races, although post-Brexit bureaucracy means that the Channel Islands have become a more straightforward destination to visit.

Hazards along the way are numerous, including obstacles such as pylons and television aerials and the ever-present threat of hungry birds of prey.

The races are often hard-fought, with birds sometimes separated by mere seconds in hours-long races.

Fanciers have turned to modern technology such as Rfid tags, the kit behind contactless payments, to figure out who has won in such tight finishes.