A confused Canada Goose has fallen in love with a boat's outboard motor.

Bruce is so attached to the 80 horsepower Mercury motor, he won't have anything to do with other birds and didn't fly south last winter.

He lives on the Somass River in British Columbia and spends his days within a wingspan of his two-stroke companion.

The boat's owner Mike Cooke, from Port Alberni, said: "Every time we take the boat out he gives us hell. He's very possessive. The wife comes out and touches the motor and he starts pecking at her hand."

He said water skiing has become difficult because Bruce tends to stay too close to the motor for his own good.

The Canada.com website reports he said: "When we get back, the first thing he does is check on the motor."

WASHINGTON (AP) A dead bird discovered on the White House grounds is being tested to see if it is infected with West Nile Virus.

The crow is one of two found near a fountain on the South Lawn this week. The first was discovered late Sunday by Secret Service officers, who then found the second early Monday.

A District of Columbia crew sent to collect the birds found the first too decomposed to test. The second was sent to a state lab in Maryland, which tests all suspect bird carcasses found in the district. The process will take a few days.

Forty-five dead birds in the city have tested positive for West Nile so far this year, according to the D.C. Dept. of Health. More than half have been found in a neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of the district.

That area is home to the National Zoo, which said last week that two flamingo chicks and a duck died this month from West Nile, which the zoo also believes killed a dozen more of its birds.

Florida's Disney World has stopped releasing homing pigeons during shows after 30 years because they keep being eaten by hawks. Disney decided to stop the practice used in shows like Cinderella's Surprise Celebration and Beauty and the Beast. The company had become disturbed by the thought the birds were being released to certain death.

The birds soared over the parks before returning to nearby roosts during the shows, but it was during these flights they would be preyed on by hawks, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

Disney spokeswoman Diane Ledder says it was only recently the hawks had started attacking the pigeons and no visitors had complained.

The red-tailed hawks could not be relocated because Ledder says they would probably find their way back. 

A home is being sought for the remaining 200 pigeons and the five staff who took care of the birds will take up other posts.

A homing pigeon taking part in a race from France to England ended up down a diamond mine in South Africa.  The bird missed its finishing line by 5,000 miles and was discovered down the mine in Alexander Bay, north of Cape Town.

Its owner, Henry Sinfield, got the shock of his life three weeks after the race when he got a call from South Africa saying that his prized bird had been found.  The pigeon, known as GB S82074.99, was taking part in a race from Fourgeres, in France, on June 8.

It was supposed to return to Mr Sinfield's home in South Normanton, Derbyshire. It was one of nine which failed to arrive at 79-year-old Mr Sinfield's home, after being swept off-course by a storm during the race from France.

Mr Sinfield, who has been racing the birds since he was nine years old, said the bird was now being treated like royalty by pigeon fanciers in South Africa.  "They say it is the longest flight any pigeon has ever made," he said. "It must have gone out with the wind and it must have alighted on a ship and flew off again.

"I thought I had heard the last of those pigeons, so when I was told that one of them had somehow made it all the way to South Africa, I was truly amazed. They want to breed with it in South Africa now. They are treating it as royalty."

A spokeswoman for the Royal Pigeon Racing Association, said: "We have had some land up in Poland. We once had a pigeon which caught a lift from Southampton on the QE2 to America and another which flew all the way to Canada. But I have never heard of an English pigeon turning up in South Africa."

South African National Homing Pigeon Organisation secretary Willie Venter said the pigeon will be sent to him in Pretoria. Mr Sinfield said he had decided to let the pigeon stay with Mr Venter.