When Boris the fantail arrived in Callum Percy’s life in 2020, the 29-year-old trainee teacher was immediately smitten. Boris had been discovered by a family friend in a dishevelled state after what looked like a run-in with a sparrow hawk, its blond-white tail as fluffy as a cumulus cloud.
“We called him Boris after the prime minister as his feathers were all over the place when we found him,” Callum laughs as his 13-strong flock of fantails, frillbacks and capuchines coo in the aviary behind him. He and his girlfriend, Serena Mihaila, 24, also a trainee teacher, installed the 6ft by 4ft wooden and mesh aviary and nesting area in the garden of their Derby home earlier this year.
For now, Callum and Serena are fancy birders – they keep their frilled, coloured and crested feathered friends for the sheer pleasure of appreciating their looks. But next year, when the couple buy their own home, they would like to start exhibiting at shows. That means upstaging Boris and co with some purer-breed pigeons, such as frillbacks with more erect frills or capuchines with elaborate, super-fluffy head crests. At show, these headturners will be assessed for their appearance, good breeding and how they sit in their handlers’ hands.
