In 1968 the appropriately named Albert Feather, a pigeon fancier from Wigan, was looking for a way to spot his racing pigeons if they returned home after dark. Taking his inspiration from passing aircraft he decided to experiment with fitting flashing navigation lights to the wing tips and underbelly. All went well until Albert fitted a high voltage battery to keep the lights flashing on a particularly long distance night race. The unsuspecting bird, now comfortable with the apparatus, took the unfortunate decision to stop when almost home for refreshments in a neighbour's bird bath. On touch down the electrics shorted out and exploded in a white hot plasma ball of sparks and plumage. Tragic as it was, it did briefly achieve the objective of making the bird easily visible in the dark.

Undeterred by this setback Albert set his mind to the tricky problem of spotting his pigeons amongst the many others taking part in a race. The obvious solution was to deck them out in his adopted racing colours of red and blue. There were many attempts at fitting them with little jackets (hand knitted by his long suffering wife Lottie), but this was abandoned since it interfered more than a little with pigeon aerodynamics.

Something more radical was required and eventually Albert determined there was no better way than to apply the colours with paint. Disregarding the warnings of a local vet that the paint would undoubtedly kill the bird, Albert rashly selected his favourite pigeon ‘Beaky’ for the trial.

Days later Beaky was dead. In an interview in the sport’s monthly journal ‘The Pigeon Fancier’s Gazette’ Albert explained that the paint played no part in Beaky’s demise. He said that “it all seemed to go wrong when I used a blow lamp to get the old grey colours off”.

Pigeon Fact

• Homing pigeons are thought to find their way home using the Earth’s magnetic field. Researchers tried to prove this by attaching small but powerful magnets to a pigeon’s back to disrupt its navigational abilities. The bird was released 100 miles from home carrying a tiny tracking device and the theory was thought proven when the bird took a sharp right turn after only 5 miles.The scientists followed the tracking beacon but were forced to rethink the experiment when the bird was located at a local airfield securely attached to the underside of a light aircraft.