Loft of gipsy homing pigeons painted in the colours of Spain and Andalusia

Trebots @ Sunday May 6th 2007 14:24

Snapped by SG on a lovely clear day last week on a variation of this Barcelona city walk. The birds belong to three tired-looking gents who one would have said were hippophiles pertaining to the kingdom of Dionysus, so we didn’t enquire as to the whys and wherefores.

Birds are often painted for ceremonial or magical purposes. For example,

Why hasn’t Zapatero banned it?

RSS: post comments, blog comments, blog posts

You can leave a response. Pinging is currently closed due to spam generated by Jared Croslow's Deep Link Engine. (Temporary fix: turn off trackbacks with MySQL: UPDATE wp_posts SET ping_status="closed"; )

  1. Frank
    February 27th 2010 06:36

    These birds are actually Modern Spanish Thief Pouters. In fact, if you look closely you can see some of the males are flying with inflated crops. They aren’t colored for magical purposes or otherwise. They are colored because of the game being played. The birds are in the colors of their individual owners so that they can be recognized at a distance. Birds are put up and chase a hen bird which has a white feather attached to her. The male birds are judged on their “wooing” abilities.

    This breed is very popular here in the States within some of the Cuban and Spanish communities and also popular in some parts of Mexico and S. American countries.

  2. Trevor
    February 28th 2010 09:03

    I thought that this was going to be a very sophisticated wind-up, but it’s true! Thank you!

Guided walking tours

FollowTheBaldie.com provides guided walking tours of Barcelona and various other cities in the Western Mediterranean, as well as country walks and hikes in the Barcelona region.

Kalebeul gallery

More photo-posts here.

Google Reader

I share other stuff over here.

Pordiosería

If you're feeling generous, check out my Amazon wishlists for Deutschland, France , and the UK, or use PayPal to

My 5% bookstore - new stuff



Spanish history

Modern Spanish fiction

Spanish classics

On this day

Barcelona

  • September 9 1423 Llega viniendo de Nápoles con treinta y dos galeras el rey D. Alfonso IV de Barcelona.
  • September 9 1783 Principian á construirse los hornos de municion, conocidos con el nombre de Pastim.
  • September 9 1843 (Sábado). ContinĂşan las contestaciones entre el Capitan General y Ayuntamiento, las cuales versan en gran parte sobre el haber hostilizado el barrio de Gracia los Centralistas á pesar de no haber sido molestados desde aquel punto. Hoy ha entrado, á eso de la una y media de la ta...

Josep Pla, Palafrugell (1918-9)

  • 9 de setembre de 1918 Passat el dia a Girona –sense tenir-hi prĂ cticament res a fer. El viatge, en tren, anar i tornar, val: 3,60 ptes. Tothom ho troba car. No ho sĂ© pas: em falta un terme de comparaciĂł. No he guanyat fins ara, en la meva vida, ni un cèntim. Els diners tenen una importĂ ncia indescriptible. És clarĂ­ssim. [...]
  • Nothing doing.

Back to top