Of Pigeons...

Though it has been more than a month since we left Agra during our vacation with Dave's sister, Beth, we wanted to make one more post about our experience there. While we were eating dinner on our hotel's rooftop restaurant, we noticed an unusual flock of birds. At first they just looked like a standard group that was flying around doing "birdish" things. Then we noticed that the same group was not breaking up and was flying back and forth from the Taj Mahal to the other side of our hotel.

After watching the birds curiously for a while, it became clear that there were several other flocks just like the first that were doing the same thing--flying around as a unit back and forth around our hotel. Eventually, we saw one of the groups fly over to one of the taller buildings in the area where a man was standing. It was this man that was directing this flock of kabootar, or pigeons, with high-pitched whistles.

It would seem that the practice of training flocks of pigeons to fly and follow commands is popular in some of the Muslim neighborhoods of India. The area around the Taj Mahal is predominately Muslim, so we saw many different flocks out getting their nightly exercise. Some were quite small, but still did a great job of staying together.

Others were quite large and successfully navigated the many obstacles in their way around Agra's rooftops.

It was a great chance to see an interesting part of Indian culture. Tune in next time for a bit of kite flying instead of pigeon flying.

Dave and Beth