The Carrier Pigeon

Release date: 1st May 2010

Did you know that for hundreds of years pigeons have been used as 'flying postmen'? Although these birds normally stay close to their homes, they have what is known as 'homing instinct'. If they are taken hundreds of miles away they will fly straight home again very quickly! So, people have often used the pigeon's clever ability to find its way home, to send messages. Tiny metal tubes are fixed to the bird's leg, and the paper containing the message is then rolled up and placed inside. In time of war when it was impossible to send messages in the normal way, the carrier pigeons have sometimes been the only way to pass on important news, or to ask for help. A war hero decorated for his bravery in the fight against Hitler was finally honoured on 19 September 2009 by his home town, Carnlough, Co Antrim, 55 years after his death. Paddy the pigeon was the first bird to make it back to England with vital news from the D-Day Normandy landings in June 1944.
How Do They Do It?
 How do pigeons find their way back home? They are usually carried in such a way that they cannot see where they are going, so although they can recognise and remember objects on the ground, this cannot help them if they are carried in a covered box. Scientists believe that pigeons can check the angle of the sun, but they can still fly home on cloudy days, so they must have some other way of finding the right direction. It is now believed that pigeons use the earth's magnetism. In an experiment, when magnets were fixed to the birds' heads, they were totally lost. It has been discovered that pigeons have a tiny piece of magnetic rock inside their heads! This tiny magnet in their brains helps them detect the earth's magnetic field, and use it to find their way home. How did the tiny magnet get into the pigeon's brain? It couldn't have happened accidently through evolution. Pigeons must have been created by God, ready equipped with that tiny magnet which is so vital to finding their way home.