Birds 09 - Messenger Pigeons

Messenger Pigeons A special breed of pigeons used in Egypt since 3000 BC to carry messages written and attached to their legs. Messenger pigeons, also called homing pigeons, navigate to their home post with the help of nervous system 'magnetoreception'. They are guided by instincts and Earth's magnetic field to ‘return' to their ‘home post', so they are often called ‘Homing Pigeons'. By the turn of Christian Era use of mail pigeons had become common across the world, found useful in wartime communication. The breed of pigeons, derived from the wild rock dove, selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances. Mail pigeons fly at a speed of over a hundred kilometres per hour, flying distances upto thousand eight hundred kilometres recorded. At times when telegram and phones did not exist and internet was not even heard of, messenger Pegions reared for human communication, now no use.