Hancock Pigeon Fancier Sends His Birds Aloft
Mick Murphy picked grapes in France, oranges in Greece and worked in a youth hostel in Amsterdam but in the end, the Englishman always knew that he would settle down and have pigeons.

Pigeon fancier Mick Murphy keeps his birds in a home-built loft near his Hancock home.—STAFF PHOTOS BY HEATHER STEEVES

“They have open flight morning to night,” the Hancock man said last week. “Everyone thinks they live in my house, they don’t.”

In the United States, pigeons have gotten a bad rap. Most Americans associate them with urban settings and see the plump, iridescent blue birds as filthy, disease-carrying creatures. In fact, scientists say pigeons have acute vision and hearing enabling them to see and hear far more than humans. These powers make it possible for the birds to fly great distances and in fog, high winds and other weather conditions hampering sight and sound.

In the United States and more so in Europe, pigeon racing is a well established sport.

Murphy keeps three types of pigeons: Pletinckx (pronounced: Play-tinks), fantails and rollers. Pletinckx are homing, racing birds, the fantails are more for decoration, and the rollers somersault through the air.

“Having pigeons has a bad name with most people because they think of them as street pigeons,” Murphy said. “These are nothing like city pigeons.”

A native of Cambridge, England, Murphy grew up in a rural area. He has been raising pigeons since he was 9. At age 11, a local doctor, who was retiring, gave children his pigeons.

“He had pigeons from the queen [Queen Elizabeth], which I ended up getting,” Murphy said. “The professionals were surprised someone young would have birds this good.”

When neighbors griped that the birds woke them up in the morning, Murphy moved the flock to his grandmother’s farm several miles away and constructed a loft for them there.

In England, Murphy says pigeon owners meet at the local pub — over a little shandy, of course — the Friday night before the race. Each is given a clock box, which keeps time and elastic bands with numbers on them. Owners put bands on competing pigeons’ legs. A train then transports the birds to “the top of Scotland.” When they reached the far-flung coastal town of Thurso, thousands of the birds are released simultaneously on Saturday if the weather is good.

“Fog can ruin it,” Murphy said.

Back in England, pigeon racers wait for their birds to arrive home Saturday morning. Once the bird dives into the loft, “you’d rush in to take the rubber band off the leg, put it in a thimble and put it in the box clock,” Murphy explained. “You crank it and it printed the exact time. It was sealed — you couldn’t get it out. It couldn’t be tampered with.”

The owners then lug the clocks back to the pub and the fanciers crack them open to read the time printoffs sealed in the box. Then they calculate, in feet, the distance the pigeon navigated and how long it took. It takes a lot of calculating. Because of this, the first bird home doesn’t always win.

Some racers employ certain tactics to get the quickest flight.

“Before a race they will put a cock bird with the hen bird to let him see it in its nest compartment. They’ll take the cock bird away. Let them see another male with her,” Murphy said. This is called widowhood and it only works for races that are less than 70 miles because they soar so fast that the bird can’t keep the speed for vast distances. “You better not stand near the loft when he comes home … Pigeons are a lot like people. They are jealous.”

Some racers blow out an egg and trap an earwig inside to make it wiggle. The pigeon hen then sits on the egg thinking there’s a chick in side. The owner lets the bird sit on it and then releases her for the competition.

The fastest pigeons, though, don’t always win the race.

“The opposite. The slowest bird often wins,” Murphy said. This is because of wind. Fast birds can get swept up and overfly, slower pigeons don’t make this mistake. “Slow birds could be the only ones home on the day,” he said.

To train a homing pigeon, Murphy said owners take a 3-month-old and accustom it gradually to flying increasingly greater distances from their loft: Half a mile, then a mile, five miles before the larger jumps.

Murphy’s pigeons have flown home from New Hampshire. He says some long-distance pigeons can travel 500 miles in one trip.

“All my birds, every one of them, I’ve taken in jumps,” said Murphy. That’s because he no longer has the time to make the smaller jumps.

Hawks prey on pigeons. So Murphy makes a practice of not naming his. He doesn’t want to become too personally attached in case one is snatched by a hawk. He credits the raptors for helping to regulate his bird population.

In his two decades in Maine, he has only had to deal with two hawks. This year, he has caught three trying to get into his birds’ loft. If a hawk manages to get inside, Murphy stands nearby so the raptor can see him. He does this for about 30 seconds to frighten it before freeing it.

“I never see it again ever,” he said.

Two decades ago, Murphy landed in America. A cheap flight to New York was meant to be a pit stop only to his Canadian destination where he has relations. After his plane landed, Murphy needed to make some money to fund the final leg of his journey. He wound up working on a fishing boat off Cape Cod before a stint cooking at The Old Reliable Fish House in Provincetown, Mass. That’s where he met his wife, Pam, who was waitressing there at the time.

The Murphys, who have been married for 18 years, eventually moved to Maine, where land was cheap. For over a decade, they farmed in the Penobscot County town of Argyle before moving to Hancock and starting Briarwood Farm. He does some work for Maine Coast Sea Vegetables in Franklin, which keeps him close to home — near his pigeons.

One of his neighbors brings him shavings for the birds’ bedding. Another helped transport one of his homing pigeons to the inland Maine town of Mexico.

“I have good neighbors here [in Maine],” he said.

When Murphy settled in New England, he naturally thought to join the local pigeon club. To his surprise, it was hard finding one. In southern Maine, there are roughly 100 pigeon racers The closest club is 150 miles away from his Hancock home.

“Maybe one day a club will start in this area,” he said. “It takes five people to start.”

For family health reasons, Murphy may not be able to keep his pigeons much longer. If he is able to, though, the pigeon fancier hopes to start a club and race again.

Occasionally, Murphy does get back to England.

“The first thing they said to me is, ‘Do you still keep pigeons?” Murphy said. “I said, ‘yes.’”