For the love of doves

Released from a basket or the palm of one's hand, a flock of white doves in flight are a symbol of love, peace and purity to many — and for one Marysville family, their newest vocation.

Nearly two years ago, the daughters of Beth Ward discovered a wounded pigeon behind their one-story house and nursed it back to health. But what began as a simple act of kindness to a nameless bird evolved into a new passion and later into a business, Open Heaven Ceremonial Dove Release, which raises the birds and then frees them at weddings, funerals and other ceremonies.

"It's really something special to be a part of those significant times — during a time of celebration and a time of letting go," the 44-year-old Ward, a teacher and tutor, said Sunday morning next to the backyard aviary that hosts the snowy-feathered birds. "That's something they can have — a little taste of what we imagine heaven to be like."

Two wooden, closet-size structures called lofts are home to Open Heaven's winged, snowy-feathered workers. Male pigeons occupy one loft while the other is inhabited by younger birds and females — a segregation needed because of the pigeons' amorous bonding, which Ward described with a smile as "sort of like youth group."

Open Heaven's origins go back to a spring day in 2008, when Ward's younger daughter, Victoria, found a wounded pigeon on the back porch. While tending to the animal, her mother, increasingly intrigued, found Web sites and books on raising homing pigeons, then ordered her own group of birds from a Gilroy breeder.

"I saw a video of a (ceremonial) dove release and it got to me, and I decided, we have to do that," she recalled. "I said to myself, 'This must be a sign.'"

Ward and her daughters Emily, now 16, and Victoria, 14, started Open Heaven in October 2008 and have since performed about 20 dove releases in the Mid-Valley. The family charges $100 to $200 per event, but donates its services for some memorials and community events.

The white doves used in marking celebrations actually are homing pigeons, which for centuries served as communication tools for armies and governments that bred them to carry winged messages on paper slips attached to their legs. Their navigation ability in unfamiliar surroundings allows Ward's doves to unerringly return to their Marysville lofts, even when set free for spectators as distant as Chico and Oroville. Another variety of dove, the ringneck or Barbary, can interbreed with homing pigeons, but lacks return instincts and is not used for releases. At least one Open Heaven client, the rock group Sherwood, has found a different use for the doves, performing a bird release behind band members for a music video — though one pigeon almost met an untimely end during filming.

"We tossed the birds up in the air to make them pop up from behind (the band members)," Ward remembered, laughing. "But one bird got stuck in the mustard grass and I said, 'Oh God, he's gonna fall on that bird!' And I had to run in and grab it."

Later Sunday, the Ward family's homing pigeons were back in their lofts, having been released at Ellis Lake for training session a half-hour earlier. Peanuts left outside as a treat awaited them; a male that arrived early strutted with its chest out for the females' benefit.

Ultimately, said Ward, the flying displays are her way to share — and recapture — the special feeling the sight of doves has brought her.

"It's just a strong sense of peace," she said. "And it's cool to share that with people at a significant time in their lives."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.