Carrier/Messenger pigeons have served humanity throughout history.
In the Chronicles of Nadine, a Christian Fantasy book series based in medieval times, spies play an important role in gaining intelligence for both King Radolf and Lady Christine. One of these spies used carrier pigeons as a method of communication. Messenger pigeons have served humanity throughout history. Their use formed part of a deliberate intelligence campaign in World War II as keepers across Britain and the United States donated their homing birds for use by Allied troops in relaying secret messages across enemy lines. However, ancient civilisations were using them way before the World Wars.
Carrier pigeons were a common form of communication before digital communication because of their intelligence of the birds and the ease of training and, most importantly, their homing instincts. A homing instinct is an animal’s innate ability to return to its territory after travelling away from it. But it was not as simple as arriving at a market and handing a message to a handler and sending a message to your sweetheart or agent. It was well thought out network that took deliberate planning and training.
Scientists believe pigeons can navigate by sensing the earth’s magnetic field and using the sun for direction, but the beauty in using these birds is their homing instincts.
In order to have an effective pigeon messenger network, a medieval handler had to transport the pigeons in cages away from their home nest and to another destination.
This allowed the owners to train the birds to instinctively move between two chosen locations using food and water incentives.
A spy bird trainer could either use the home base location as the single route return for messages or create a route between two set locations. For a two-way flight route, the trainers had to remove the food from the base. They would have to manually take the pigeon to the second location and provide feed. You may have noticed some medieval style movies where merchants carried birds in cages on carts.
Once the bird had eaten, they would eventually return to the home base. Handlers repeated this process until the pigeon migrated between the two locations independently. On the day that a message was to be delivered, handlers would remove feed from the home base. They would release the hungry pigeon and it would fly to the second location to feed and deliver the message.
Modern technology has allowed humans to track these remarkable birds who have average flying speed over moderate 965 km (600 miles) distances is around 97 km/h (60 miles per hour) and speeds of up to 160 km/h (100 miles per hour), which has been observed in top racers for short distances in modern times. Flights as long as 1,800 km (1,100 miles) have been recorded by birds in competitive pigeon racing.
Here are some examples of the use of these birds in ancient history.
2304 BC: Flood: Readers of the Christian Bible may remember that Noah sent out a dove from the arc to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. The bird returned. He repeated this exercise until the bird returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. Readers can find this text in Genesis 8: 6 – 11.
1200 BC: During the rule of Ramses III, Ancient Egyptians used pigeons to transfer messages about the state of the flood of the Nile. In order to benefit from the Nile, many people lived along its banks, but this also put them at risk when the file was in flood.
The Egyptians made use of pigeon towers, which is an ancient method of raising and keeping pigeons.
776 BC: Ancient Greeks used carrier pigeons to announce the winners of the Olympic games to surrounding towns.
58 – 50 BC: In the Gallic Wars between 58 BC and 50 BC, Roman historian Frontinus recorded that Julius Caesar announced his victory by releasing pigeons. The Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul.
12 AD:The first sophisticated messaging service was established in Syria and Persia in the 12th century AD, with messages being carried by pigeons from city to city.
These humble birds served humans, whether as sacrifices to many gods, as food or as working birds, for as long as history can record. They formed an integral part of progress in the economy, military strategy, with some of them being awarded the Dickin Medal, which is the animal’s equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
Modern Rescue Story:
During World War II, RAF bombers routinely carried pigeons. This was before the age of GPS and satellite locator beacons, and if a bomber went down, rescue was far from certain. In 1942, a crew returning from a mission in Norway was hit by enemy fire and crashed into the sea approximately 120 km away from base. Before they went down, they released their bird, hoping that it would fly home. The four men, who could not radio home, struggled in the freezing water, resting their hopes on this single bird.
When the exhausted oil soaked bird was found, with no message, the RAF quicly went to work,calculating the position of the aircraft using the time difference between the plane’s ditching and the arrival of the bird. The four men upon that plane owed their lives to this remarlble bird known as Winkie.
Dragon Mugs
If you love dragons, then these Dragon coffee mugs are for you. Muquin is a Silver Wing Dragon from the Chronicles of Nadine epic Fantasy Series.