Being awaken at 6:30 AM on holiday isn't ideal, but yesterday was the day my nephew and his friends decided to release their pet pigeons. It's a 30 minutes drive to the picturesque Quirino Bridge or Banaoang bridge (as it's known to the locals).

Preparations and waiting for the others with their own pigeons seemed so long till we finally left about 7 AM.

It was still dark and very windy when we went our way but the sun was rising when we arrived. The bridge connects a gap in between two mountains where a river was created with its' water coming from the upland parts of Cordillera mountains.

Quirino bridge is the boundary between two towns, 30 minutes away, East of VIGAN. From the bridge, a zipline is noticeable across the river. As far as I know, canoeing, swimming and fishing are allowed but bring your gears!

Now...the fun part

There were 3 cages, 16 pigeons in total. Two got away on the way to the bridge as the wind played up with the door flap of one cage. To think that I was sitting beside those cages duh!!

Sadly, the excitement ended abruptly as following their flight, some 2 or 3 pigeons fell in the water who got caught from the zipline.

We can barely see their heads bobbing up and down in the water as the current was going away from the bridge. 

To the rescue!!!

At the end of the bridge, there we saw some steps down to the river banks and just maybe there's a chance of rescuing them. By the time we went down, they can't be seen anywhere.

It was disheartening for everyone, specially for the boys.  We were not sure on who own the poor birds so we didn't linger as much. All were gagging to go home.

My phone's battery was totally zero when we got home but there were some pigeons already on the roof of the house, who then flew to their cage after.

We lost 3 pigeons yesterday, one of them was my nephew's. But even so, there was one new pigeon who joined them in their journey home.

The pigeon in the roof is the new addition of the flock. A little aloof but he did join them in...

                  the end.

All images are my own and were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S7. Badge courtesy of @elyaque.