This is a new, reorganized and revised book that is built off one published in 2014. The sections have been revised and updated with new photos and descriptions as well as all new sections to the book. This version is 80% larger with updated information. The first book has now been retired.

The Birmingham Roller pigeon is a popular domesticated breed of performing pigeon, known for its beautiful aerial rotations when flying in teams for roller pigeon competitions. Scores are based on aerial performances in group unison along with duration and style. In The Pigeon Trainer and the Birmingham Roller, pigeon fancier John Bender shares his decades long journey to becoming the 1994 World Cup Champion in roller pigeon competition, sharing his tips on how he picked and trained his world-champion group of birds. Whether you wish to fly competitively or simply raise pigeons for pure enjoyment, learn how to start your own family of rollers, house and care for your pigeons, color-breeding, as well as training pigeons for competition. Learn the history of roller pigeons and their evolution from prehistoric times. Guest writers include master flyer, Ken Easley, roller historian, Tom Monson, and pigeon scientist, Ben Novak. A great addition to your library or gift for the novice. More than a book, The Pigeon Trainer and the Birmingham Roller is a complete full-color study-guide/field-manual for housing, raising, feeding, breeding, and flying pigeons. Whether you want to raise pigeons as a hobby, specifically for color breeding, or flying competitively The Pigeon Trainer and the Birmingham Roller covers all aspects of the fancier's journey!

WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2014 *PBS Recommendation 2014* ‘When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me...’ In Black Country, Liz Berry takes flight: to Wrens Nest, Gosty Hill, Tipton-on-Cut; to the places of home. The poems move from the magic of childhood – bostin fittle at Nanny’s, summers before school – into deeper, darker territory: sensual love, enchanted weddings, and the promise of new life. In Berry’s hands, the ordinary is transformed: her characters shift shapes, her eye is unusual, her ear attuned to the sounds of the Black Country, with ‘vowels ferrous as nails, consonants / you could lick the coal from.’ Ablaze with energy and full of the rich dialect of the West Midlands, this is an incandescent debut from a poet of dazzling talent and verve.

Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun. Fact: Pigeons are amazing, and until recently, humans adored them. We’ve kept them as pets, held pigeon beauty contests, raced them, used them to carry messages over battlefields, harvested their poop to fertilize our crops—and cooked them in gourmet dishes. Now, with The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, readers can rediscover the wonder. Equal parts illustrated field guide and quirky history, it covers behavior: Why they coo; how they flock; how they preen, kiss, and mate (monogamously); and how they raise their young (on chunky pigeon milk). Anatomy and identification, from Birmingham Roller to the American Giant Runt to the Scandaroon. Birder issues, like what to do if you find a baby pigeon stranded in the park. And our lively shared story together, including all the things we’ve taught them—Ping-Pong, for example. “Rats with wings?” Think again. Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain. So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist (and co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid) is here to give the pigeon's image a makeover, and to help every town- and city-dweller get closer to nature by discovering the joys of birding through pigeon-watching.

They have been worshipped as fertility goddesses and revered as symbols of peace. Domesticated since the dawn of humankind, they have been crucial to wartime communications for every major historical superpower from ancient Egypt to the United States and are credited with saving thousands of lives. One delivered the results of the first Olympics in 776 BC and another brought the news of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo more than 2500 years later. Charles Darwin relied heavily upon them to help formulate and support his theory of evolution. Yet today the pigeon is reviled as a rat with wings. How did we come to misunderstand one of humanity's most steadfast companions?In Pigeons, Andrew D. Blechman travels across the United States and Europe in a quest to chronicle the bird's transformation from beloved friend to feathered outlaw.