Clik here to view.
Wartime hero pigeon Paddy honoured with fly-past
One of Northern Ireland’s smallest World War II heroes has been honoured. Paddy, a messenger pigeon who served with the RAF during the Normandy operations in June 1944, was remembered in his home town...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Testing pigeon memory in a change detection task
Six pigeons were trained in a change detection task with four colors. They were shown two colored circles on a sample array, followed by a test array with the color of one circle changed. The pigeons...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The pigeon has landed
I have written before about the widespread fear of German paratroops in Britain in May and June 1940. Here’s a sterling example from somewhere in London, as described in the Ministry of Information’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scientists give extinct passenger pigeon a place on the family tree
With bits of DNA extracted from century-old museum specimens, researchers have found a place for the extinct Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) in the family tree of pigeons and doves,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Messenger / Homing Pigeons & Their Applications
Homing pigeons are called messenger pigeons when they are used to carry messages. Messages have to be written on light, thin paper (such as cigarette paper) and rolled into a small tube that is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Birmingham pigeon fanciers inspire play
Pigeon fanciers in Birmingham have provided the inspiration for a new play, which the team behind it plan to stage at a city pigeon loft. The play is written by Mandy Ross and based on an idea by Alex...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Contesting Tradition: The Deep Play and Protest of Pigeon Shoots
Pigeon shoots are examples of “contested traditions” that invite comparison with other controversial spectacles of killing animals, such as cockfights and dogfights. In the United States during the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Homing Pigeons are Forgetful Too
If it makes you feel any better, humans aren’t the only animals that forget things. Researchers have found that homing pigeons do the same. The new findings, they add, suggest an underlying continuity...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ROCK PIGEON
The recently changed name of Rock Pigeon reflects its traditional nesting site on rocky cliffs (replaced by buildings for feral populations) and its membership in the genus Columba, most of whose...
View ArticleClik here to view.
WHAT TO DO WITH PIGEON GEESE?
While most Canada Geese spend the spring and fall migrating back and forth between their winter and summer habitat, some sub-populations of the Canada Goose have sprung up in many urban and suburban...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Loved or loathed, feral pigeons as subjects in ecological and social research
The feral pigeon (Columba livia) carries with it a reputation that runs counter to conservation: it is feral, exotic and invasive and even considered down right filthy. But upon closer inspection, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Pigeons Became Rats: The Cultural-Spatial Logic of Problem Animals
How do animals become problems? Drawing on interactionist theories of social problems and cultural geography, I argue that the construction of animals as problems relies upon cultural understandings of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don’t Feed the Pigeons Here. But Over There, O.K.
“Safe pigeon-feeding zones” may be designated around the city as part of the negotiations between animal rights groups and the Brooklyn city councilman who has proposed fining pigeon feeders as much as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meet the hero carrier pigeon that saved US troops during a WWI battle 100...
In the third floor hallway of the Pentagon, just outside the Army Chief of Staff’s office, there is a pigeon. Walking the corridors, the lifelike pigeon stands out among the cases of military history...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pigeons Are Secretly Brilliant Birds That Understand Space and Time, Study Finds
Of all the birds in the world, the pigeon draws the most ire. Despite their reputation as brainless “rats with wings,” though, they’re actually pretty brilliant (and beautiful) animals. A new study...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How birds find food
DEAR JOAN: Yesterday afternoon I blew the leaves off the lawn and garden in my backyard, leaving a lot of bare soil showing. A couple of hours later, I happened to look outside and to my wondering eyes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pigeons’ homing instinct is all down to smell
Scientists have discovered the secret of pigeons’ remarkable ability to navigate perfectly over journeys of several hundred miles. They do it by smell. Research found that pigeons create ‘odour’ maps...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pigeons Follow Their Noses Home
For thousands of years, humans have bred rock doves (a.k.a. pigeons) to travel home over massive distances. These domesticated pigeons have helped us fight wars, find shipwrecks, and deliver blood...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Get Rid of Pigeons
It may sound hard to believe, but pigeons are actually a bit of a nuisance to human populations, no matter how attractive these pests can be. Pest control measures frequently include pigeon deterrent...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s magnetic: How animals use their senses to find home
We learn that there are five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste). And we say that there is the “sixth sense,” meaning intuition or a hunch. But there is a physiological seventh sense that...
View Article
