World’s Worst Homing Pigeon Flies From Japan, Cruises Bahamas on Classic Yacht.

Meet Herman, Living Aboard ‘Steadfast’

Peter Swanson Nov 30

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This story was originally published in March 2023. Writer-chef Janice Anne Wheeler now has her own nautical Substack newsletter called Sparring With Mother Nature. Here’s how she told the story.

Once upon a time there was a pigeon named Herman. He was a homing pigeon, the property of a pigeon racing enthusiast in Japan. Alas, Herman may well be the worst homing pigeon in the world.

Instead of navigating to a coop in some city with a name like Ibaraki or Kasuga, Herman somehow ended his last race in the Bahamas. He is now cruising aboard a classic sailboat with writer-chef Janice Anne Wheeler and Annapolis surveyor Steven Uhthoff.

Wheeler, who gave Herman the Homing Pigeon his name, said she wants to write an “children’s story (and for adults)” about their visitor, who just popped in unannounced earlier this month. Herman landed in the pilothouse at 4 p.m. on March 10 as they lay at anchor in the Bight of Acklins aboard Steadfast, a 1934 William Hand ketch.

“He drank water but ate nothing I tried. Just sat on the deck and pooped some crazy colors. We figure he ate something bad. We had a plan to sail at 5 a.m. the following morning. Not an easy 37-hour passage to Governor’s Harbour Eleuthera, and he just hung in. We gave him the storage bin that you see, and he tucks in sometimes,” Wheeler said. “Otherwise, he’s very observant, alert, entertaining and seems to listen to everything that we say. However, he is wary and won’t let us approach closer than a foot or so.”

It happens that from time-to-time errant Japanese pigeons make their way to foreign lands, and a leg band like Herman’s (“Japan 2020 123235”) tips off the locals to his or her origins. The finders often try to contact the pigeon’s owners, and like Wheeler, they tend to get nowhere. Some Canadians who found a pigeon from Japan in 2013 did actually manage to contact the owner, who was happy his guy had survived but didn’t want him back.

Pigeon fanciers, as they are sometimes called, are a bigger subculture than you might imagine—probably a lot bigger than the cruising community. For evidence of that, you need go no further than Florida (where this is being written).

Over on the Gulf Coast, the adjacent towns of Spring Hill and Brooksville constitute a retirement Mecca for pigeon enthusiasts, who are attracted from all over North America by the two towns’ “pigeon friendly zoning.” For a reality check from pigeon world, Loose Cannon got John Stephen on the phone, vice-president of the Gulf Coast Homing Club and owner of 18 birds.

Though Wheeler wished it were so, Stephen quashed the notion that a pigeon has the tankage and range for trans-oceanic flight. Stephen said a pigeon can only fly for about 700 miles at a time. The great-circle route (as the crow flies) from Japan to the Bahamas is about 6,600 nautical miles, on a path similar to that of the recent Chinese spy balloon.

Homing pigeons have impressive navigational skills, including an ability to use the Earth’s magnetic field for direction. Some are better at it than others, however.

According to Stephen, pigeons are loath to fly over water. Sometimes, they get disoriented and, for example, fly out of a low cloud bank only to realize they are over the ocean. “What happens is these birds hitch a ride on a freighter, and when they get near land or another freighter, they jump ship, especially if they were not getting fed,” he said.

If you have to hitch a ride on a ship, Japan is not the worst place to begin your journey—lots of choice. Post-Covid freighter arrivals to the East Coast of the U.S. from Japan are up to about 30 a month. That is one possible explanation for how a pigeon from Nippon got to Acklins Island.

Now, Steadfast is cruising the Abacos, and her crew is wondering what to do with Herman. Refueled, he’s again fit to fly. “Herman’s diet is of course rice…but we have introduced him to Quaker oatmeal, and he’s a fan, Wheeler said.

So far, though, Herman has shown no inclination to go. Naturally, the humans won’t just evict him, despite his messy habits. The bird is “some sort of sign or spirit or symbol that chose us,” Wheeler said.

No problem, Stephen said: Bring Herman to Spring Hill, and we’ll find a home for him. He said similar arrangements can be made through other Florida pigeon clubs or any other club in the country. Wheeler has learned of a pigeon club in the Daytona Beach area, a place reachable by boat.

“Or maybe we’ll get to Ponce Inlet, and he’ll hear other pigeons and just fly off,” she said.

Update (A Few Days Later)

And that is exactly what happened a couple days after Janice Wheeler said that, except they were still in the Bahamas. “Herman took wing yesterday (March 30) here in Marsh Harbour and has not returned…We left his box back there for now,” she said.

According to the Avibase, a world bird database, the Marsh Harbour area is home to two species of pigeon, one of which is Herman’s. He’s a rock pigeon, or what we call a “pigeon.” Rock pigeons are not native to the Bahamas. There are also six species of dove.

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