Carrier pigeon

The carrier pigeon is a race of bird of Pigeon biset (Columba livia ) especially selected to accomplish voyages in order to transmit messages and whose displacements constituted a vector of communication current - and considered as highly reliable - until the end of the First World War. The stockbreeders are called Colombophile.

The Routage did not have all desired flexibility:

a pigeon can make only one thing, which is to turn over towards its Pigeonnier;
one thus kept in each pigeon pigeons belonging to another pigeon, to be able to send possible answers or to show reception;
but not too a long time either, because it is not necessary that this pigeon ends up regarding this new pigeon as his.

That remained all the same for the troops effective means of going up messages with the staff on the situation of the ground

without much risk of interception (a pigeon is more difficult to aim than a balloon);
without much puncture on the resources (a pigeon is light to carry, and easy to nourish);
in a total silence of operation (compared to a plane, for example), from where discretion;
in an almost invisible way: how to distinguish in full sky a military pigeon from its wild fellow-members?

A pigeon could in addition carry Microfilm S where necessary. But the recourse to the carrier pigeon was abandoned in the decades when the use of the microfilm spread.

The Colombophilie actively remains practiced in Europe, including in France (in particular by the “coulonneux ones” of North), like activity of leisures.

Anecdotes

During the Croisade S, the Turks and the Arab S controlled already the breeding of the pigeons, which returned to them many services at the expense of the Croisés.
Of the pigeons raised in parts without windows or under a cover never acquires the direction of the orientation. It is thus thought that usual observation of the position of the sun (as for the bees), and perhaps of the stars , a role in the training of their faculty plays.
One believed one moment that the pigeons used the roads to find their way! Indeed, of the broadcasting transmitters provided with miniaturized GPS showed that they followed those preferably. One discovered thereafter that the pigeons profited simply light current ascending above the heated bitumen, in summer.
the pigeons were used as means of communication by the French during the Franco-German war of 1870 and the First World War. A monument of the company French pigeon fancier located in the park of the citadel of Lille pays homage to them.
the carrier pigeons transport also blood samples between the hospitals of Granville and of Avranches.
US Navy uses the pigeons for the rescue at sea. The pigeons are pulled by operative Conditionnement to react certain colors (that of the life jackets). Grace at its excellent sight the pigeon, located in a bubble under a helicopter, locates the shipwrecked men well better than the human eye.

See too

Pigeons of the war of 1870
Pigeons of the war 1914-1918
Project Valiant Pigeon
: Pigeon of combat! (Cartoon film)

External bonds

Pigeon fancying on nordnet.fr
Dovecote Bockstael & Belurier
the Gate French-speaking Pigeon fancier
French the Pigeon fancier Federation

the pigeon ones of Périgord

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