Most of us are familiar with Wendell Levi's book "the Pigeon". In fact several club members, including myself, have a copy of the book in our home library. Written in 1941, the book is out of date in some parts but is still useful as a reference and provides an interesting historical perspective to the pigeon fancy.

While it is an authoritative text I found one section (paragraph 688 entitled Sleep), hard to believe. In it Levi basically says that pigeons don't sleep. He says that in his fifty-five years of pigeon breeding he has never been able to observe a bird at day or night with its eyes closed and in a sleeping condition. To prove his point he went so far as to survey other breeders through a pigeon periodical with thousands of subscribers and had only one response from an individual who had seen a pigeon sleeping and even in that case the bird was ill.

Recently there has been some research done on sleep at the Max-Planck Institute of Ornithology in Germany using, you guessed it, pigeons as their subject.

It is well known that in humans, as in all mammals, sleep comes in two phases, a deep dreamless slow- wave sleep (SWS) alternating with rapid eye movement sleep (REM) in which we dream. It also turns out that the only other animal group which experiences both SWS and REM sleep is birds.

The scientists knew that in humans slow-wave sleep is restorative, meaning that if we experience a period of sleep loss our body recovers from it by increasing the amount of slow-wave sleep, in essence sleeping more soundly. The scientists wanted to know if the same occurred in birds.

In the study pigeons were prevented from taking daytime naps but were allowed to sleep undisturbed at night. The result was although the pigeons did not sleep longer at night the amount of their slow-wave sleep increased to compensate from the earlier sleep loss.

So with all respect to Mr. Levi, it appears pigeons need their sleep, just like us.

Shortly after my retirement at the end of 2000 I decided to get back into pigeons, a hobby I enjoyed as a youth. One of the first things I did, even before building a loft or acquiring birds, was to join the Vancouver Poultry & Fancy Pigeon Association. I had the usual reasons for joining the club, to meet others with the same interest, to make contact with breeders to obtain birds and in my case, to get up to date after a forty plus year absence from the hobby. Since then my club membership experience has expanded to include show season activities and events, and over the last six years as a director, by becoming involved in the affairs and operation of the club. However until recently I had not thought about the benefit club membership provides in the form of support from other club members. In my case recently this support came through the efforts of club members, Mickey Compton and Ken Chatwin..

Mickey and Ken are the club's "builders". A fair number of club members' lofts in Victoria and the Lower Mainland owe their design or construction, at least in part, to these guys.

At last year's Winter show I mentioned to Mickey I was getting some doves and would need a new carrier. A short time later he built me a dove sized 12 hole two tier carrier and, remembering I had canaries, a cage bird carrier with two separate compartments each with an individual perch and mesh window. Both carriers are a clever design and built with an eye for detail.

For a couple of years I have been considering building a stand alone flight in my back yard and Ken has offered his suggestions about the design. Last month Ken and I started the construction and spent every weekend either in his shop or at my place, building what ended up being a top notch aviary. Without Ken's effort and expertise it simply would not have been possible. The picture will give you an idea but I invite club members to come to this month's meeting and see it for themselves.

My thanks to both Mickey and Ken for their support to me as a member of the VP & FPA.