How Homing Pigeons Work

I once moved into a new building in a less developed part of town. It was a big place, huge actually, cheap rent, and the length of the unit spanned the building with a balcony on one side, but just a small window on the other.

Early one day, I heard a pecular noise from outside. It sounded like those old WWII newsreels of Stuka divebombers. I looked out the window, but couldn't see anything. Over the days, I heard it a few more times, and became determined to find out what it was. The sound was always on the side of the building with the window, then oneday the sound carried right over the building.

That was when I finally had my opportunity. I dropped what I was doing and ran to the balcony, and saw three pigeons zooming past with whistles on their wings. It was really cool. Up until then, I didn't even know that was a thing. After that day, I extra enjoyed hearing them, knowing what they were, and how much better they were than the normal sounds of traffic.

As I said, I was new to that building. Not long afterwards I was poking around outside, and discovered that what I thought was just a shed, was actually a pigeon loft, and a nice old man cared for them there.

I don't know if any of those pigeons were homing pigeons, maybe they were for racing, or maybe just for friendship. The old man didn't speak English so we didn't really talk much and I didn't learn their story.

If not for those pigeons, there would be no pigeons in There's No Such Thing as Dragons.

What's nice about homing pigeons is that, with training, they always fly home. They do have to learn the neigborhood though; the landmarks, orientation with sun, etc. They are taught gradually by taking them away from home at greater and greater distances. Once they're trained up, they can be used to send a message - but only in one direction - they only reliably fly home. Therefore, as in my book, a bird is transported in a cage until it's needed, then a message is attached to it, and it's send home. Although not explicitly mentioned in the book, you can assume that when pigeons are used to order livestock for the restaurant, delivery of said livestock also comes with a caged bird, ready to send the next order.

One more book relevant fact: Homing pigeons' flight speed tops out at about 100km/h ~60mph. So a day's walk by a group of kids is something that a motivated pigeon can fly in about 15 minutes.

Learn more about the book and author here.