When I was a teen, a couple of racing pigeons stayed at our place for a while. One was slightly injured (her foot was all red and swollen). We gave them hamster food (I had a pet rat) and a bowl of water. They stayed until the injured one was feeling better, I think about a week. We were hoping they'd stay....we really liked them. The injured one was especially sweet and let us hold her.
As a kid we used to see the trucks go past our home carrying crates full of racing pigeons, they would take them up to Arundel Castle grounds and let them loose from there, we would see them fly over sometimes