I saw the strangest thing I have ever seen in many years of sharing my home with pigeons.
In my small stock shed I have a couple of red Jos Thone' cocks. One of them hatched babies last week.
In the next box is my good old race pigeon, The Diver. Diver is getting old, but looks like a two year old. Sadly, Mrs Diver is not.
The old hen did not lay for ages, then laid one egg only. I know, she should not still be there.
Anyway, this afternoon I was doing the housework and saw the old Diver in the red pigeon's nest box, sitting on the babies.
"No, mate" I said, and put him back in his box.
Next time I looked, he was back in there pumping feed into the babies. And he was not going to give it up, either. I tried to move him, but Diver is half human, he considers himself my equal, and started coming at me with his shoulder.
"Oh 'eck", I thought. Next thing the red cock will be back in and there will be a blood bath. In a moment of inspiration, or desperation

I threw the egg away from under Mrs Diver, and put one of the babies under her........
She took a look at it, I took a long breath, and she started pumping feed into it.
Then I had a new problem. Mrs Diver was on the baby, and Diver was a bit overwrought about the whole thing. So I took him out and plonked him in the garden with the others having a bath.
By end of play,