Not every story ends happily, even those that seem so promising in the beginning.

That's the case with the saga of "The Good Velvet Hen," a racing pigeon who veered off course on her way from Columbus, Ohio, to Long Island, and inexplicably ended up last week at the McFadden family's house near Providence Road in Towson.

The 3-year-old pigeon was said to have flown "her heart out" while trying to combat strong southerly winds during the 507-mile race.

She died a few days later.

Yet the bird won't soon be forgotten by the McFaddens, who recently installed a tiny pond among the landscaping on the southwest side of their house, complete with fish and snails and a frog who also made it his home.

All was peaceful until June 24, when an uninvited visitor brought drama to the bucolic site.

A day later, Debbie McFadden and her daughter, Haley, 6, were still caught up in the excitement.

"My sister-in-law dropped Haley off yesterday and she said, 'Hey, look at that bird there,' " McFadden said.

"I was thinking it was one of those birds that, when people die, they let them go," Haley said, perhaps referring to a dove.

"When Haley said that, I got chills," McFadden said, noting that her own sister, Kathy Sharpeta, was killed in a car accident four years ago.

"Today's her birthday -- she would have been 46," McFadden said.

"The bird has green and purple on it, and her sister, her favorite color is purple," Haley added.

The pigeon was perched on the outside sill of a basement window, about a foot from the pond.

The bird made a good impression on Haley and Bridget Boland, Haley's 6-year-old friend.

"I kind of think of it as family -- I want to keep it as a pet," Haley said.

"And wait until it has babies," Bridget said.

It was no ordinary pigeon, considering it boasted bands around its legs, one of which had letters and numbers on it.

That led McFadden to an online search for "found pigeon," which eventually brought her to the American Racing Pigeon Union's Web site.

There, she found a phone number for Val Matteucci, secretary and treasurer of the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers.

Matteucci gave McFadden the owner's name -- Matt Reilly, of Long Island.

McFadden got in touch. "He said, 'Oh my gosh I have to get this bird back' -- he was very excited."

To that end, McFadden ushered the bird into a rabbit cage, carried it to her screened-in porch and then let it out of the cage so it could drink water and munch uncooked rice -- a tidbit she picked up from the Web site on the feeding of pigeons.

Meanwhile, Reilly tried to arrange for friends to pick up the bird.

The girls noted that the bird "poops a lot" on the porch, and indeed it did, but McFadden didn't mind.

"It'll all wash off," she said.

Someone who probably did mind the bird was Haley's Comet, not the astronomical phenomenon, but the child's 8-pound pet rabbit. Comet usually spends the day on the porch, but was ushered inside for the duration of the visitor's stay.

'It was going to be her last race'

Before the racing pigeon arrived, it's unlikely the McFaddens -- or many other people, for that matter -- had thought much about a sport that has a niche following.

"I'd say we have about 13,000 members across the U.S. and Puerto Rico," Matteucci said.

That includes two pigeon racing organizations in the United States -- the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers and the American Racing Pigeons Union.

No one is sure how the bird ended up here.

About 1,400 pigeons were hauled by truck to the starting location in Ohio, where they were "liberated" at 6:30 a.m.

From there, the pigeons flew nonstop to their respective lofts in different states.

Though they fly a variety of distances, the winner is calculated by dividing the distance flown by the time elapsed -- the birds carry microchips which track the moment they're liberated and the moment they return to their lofts.

Though pigeons often race until age 5 or 6, Reilly said he'd planned on retiring The Good Velvet Hen from racing and keeping her for breeding.

"This was going to be her last race," he said.

Reilly arranged for Francis Weber, a fellow pigeon racer from Glen Burnie to pick up the bird June 25 and ship it back to Long Island.

Then fate intervened.

After McFadden left the house to run an errand for about 45 minutes, Weber and a friend had arrived to pick up the bird -- only to discover The Good Velvet Hen was dead.

McFadden said she cried.

But Reilly isn't upset with McFadden for the pigeon's death -- he's grateful she took care of it for a day.

"That was nice of her," Reilly said.

"I was glad to find out where the bird wound up," he said.

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