Mystery as 5k homing pigeons vanish

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/mystery-5000-homing-pigeons-birds-20907818

by graderjs • 5 years ago

56 58 5 years ago

walesonline.co.uk

graderjs• 5 years ago

Strangely the article blames it on "solar storms", but there have been none lately. Could be a weakening Earth field due to the current geomagnetic excursion...

fogihujy• 5 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. Does anyone know if there's any recent data on Earth's magnetic field, and which is publicly available?

goodcanadian• 5 years ago

That seems to have been a random quote from a random individual. I would put exactly zero weight on it. Vague hand waving about weather is all I took away from the article. In other words, no one knows.

datameta• 5 years ago

Pigeons are able to detect the earth's magnetic field and navigate by it. By occam's razor the disruption of that is a likely scenario.

unanswered• 5 years ago

It seems likely that this tragedy was ultimately due to climate change...

roebk• 5 years ago

I believe one of these birds ended up at my fathers garden in North Lincolnshire. The bird spent the best part of a week in his garden, showing no signs of injury, nor any sign of wanting to fly off straight back off.

After a week of food and water, the pigeon finally took off again. Hopefully it got to whereever it needed to.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/roebuck06/51278515733/in/album...

angrais5• 5 years ago

For future reference and other readers, the rings around its leg have an ID written on it that you can use to lookup the pigeon owner online. Likewise, the ring likely had an RFID chip that has the ID, gender (of the pigeon: cock/hen), and owner (or racing club) details embedded within it.

Since it has a ring, it would be happy to be handled, and am certain that any owner would appreciate having their pigeon returned.

robotmay3• 5 years ago

I came across a racing pigeon in Sidmouth once, presumably it had stopped for a rest/food, but I was amazed by how easy it was to handle - I held out my hand once I saw it had a ring and it just hopped right up.

Either that or I'm a Disney princess.

hackeraccount• 5 years ago

That's a handsome looking pigeon.

luckman212• 5 years ago

Cool looking pigeon. But man it's super annoying how non-functional zoom/pinch is on the flickr site when viewing this on iPhone.

pentae• 5 years ago

Haha. I love that "Pigeon fancier" is the actual dictionary term for someone that keeps and breeds pigeons.

lovemenot4• 5 years ago

Fancy pigeons is another term of art. Similar to thoroughbred, a fancy pigeon is a pigeon with a breeding objective. I imagine the term pigeon fancier was derived from it: someone who breeds fancy pigeons.

Darwin was a pigeon fancier [0]. He was working on theories of sexual selection.

It's interesting that terms like "fit" and "fancy", as used by British teenagers are so apt.

[0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/230968

thekid314• 5 years ago

Here's some portraits of fancy pigeons I made back in the day: https://www.daviddegner.com/photography/fancy-pigeons/

criddell• 5 years ago

I remember pet stores used to have a magazine by the checkout called Cat Fancy and I always thought that was a funny title. Now it makes some sense.

tokai• 5 years ago

Apparently earlier homing pigeon disappearances have been blamed on weather disturbing their infrasonic hearing, that the pigeons use to navigate with.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130184147.h...

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/216/4/687/11868/...

mannykannot• 5 years ago

Your mention of infrasonics immediately makes me think of wind turbines, which I guess might generate quite a lot of infrasonic noise.

lovemenot4• 5 years ago

An intriguing theory, but not proven conclusively here.

A single experiment relying on a speculative model implemented by one computer scientist combining data from multiple sources.

I am not in a position to attempt to discredit the research, but it doesn't feel right. Low frequency audio gives much more information when propogating through a dense medium like water than through the air.

quack321• 5 years ago

5,000 drones that ran out of battery

undfg2• 5 years ago

Why 5k instead of 5000?

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

They mean the same thing.

tremon• 5 years ago

Careful, this might devolve into speculation whether it was really 5000 or if they meant 5120.

mattowen_uk• 5 years ago

HN submission form has an upper limit on characters for the link title. This may have forced the submitter to substitute 5000 for 5k.

sp3322• 5 years ago

It's approximate. 5,000 looks more specific. Kind of like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures#Ways_to_de...

undfg2• 5 years ago

We have a word for that: "around"

aaron695• 5 years ago

It happened in multiple races on Saturday, June 19 - https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/pigeon-group-b...

"Any current reading of local figures over 150 nT in the A index of geomagnetic activity, or 4 or higher in 'K' index, is considered unsafe for training or racing pigeons"

https://www.foresthillweather.com/SpaceDailyGeomagnetic.php Seems fine?

It's been reported in Portugal as well - https://www.portugalresident.com/racing-pigeons-totally-conf...

touristtam3• 5 years ago

To date the furthest a Portuguese racing pigeon seems to have flown off course is 2,222 kms, straight into a bucket of paint in Plymouth, UK (click here).

That's one hell of a confused pigeon.

thenoblesunfish2• 5 years ago

I just read "Pigeons" by Andrew Blechman, which uses pigeon racers as its main through-line. Among other interesting facts in there: the pigeons you find in cities are not wild animals, but feral ones - they are all descended from domesticated animals. That has practical consequences because for example it's illegal to hunt wild animals in New York City, but the law doesn't apply to feral animals. Thus, there are (or were, when the book was written a few years ago) people who throw big nets over pigeons in NYC and sell them for a few bucks apiece in Pennsylvania, where they are (legally, still) shot for sport.

praptak2• 5 years ago

In Poland city pigeons are exempt from some animal protection laws. So while it's generally illegal to destroy functioning birds' nests, ones belonging to city pigeons are fair game.

csunbird2• 5 years ago

In Europe, they are seen as rats that can fly, which I find funny.

nly• 5 years ago

Here in the UK I was always taught that pigeons are the descendents of species native to cliff species (Rock Doves), and they are just well suited to urban life. It's not their fault.

Never heard domestication / feral theory so perhaps that's US only.

aphexairlines3• 5 years ago

Call them what they are: racing pigeons separated from their mates as a way to coerce them into flying ridiculous distances.

If you find one around your home, call the RSPCA or a rescue group.

PETA info on pigeon racing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SG_QHuhzXE

sweetheart2• 5 years ago

Yeah, this is so weird. In the article they talk about honoring the birds for having helped thousands of lives (no idea what this is referring to), so they decide to do that through… making them race for our enjoyment?

I don’t get why people have a hard time leaving animals alone. Or in cases where some intervention is needed to preserve the animal, they expect something in return.

Weird and shameful, imho.

angrais5• 5 years ago

I've no idea what it refers to either, but pigeon owners take great pleasure and enjoyment breeding and training them. Perhaps that's what they refer to regarding how they have impacted the lives of humans?

I cannot speak for pigeons as I am a human, but if I was fed, watered, had a comfortable home, often with radio or TV, high quality medical care, and in return I fly a few times a week? Sign me up!

They are breed for the purpose of flight (or sometimes looks). They cannot be "left alone" as they're not quite the same as feral pigeons.

There is absolutely no shame in keeping pigeons, caring for them, and racing them.

angrais5• 5 years ago

Pigeons fly home for food and water, not for their "mates".

As I commented above, if you find a racing pigeon there are websites where you can input the ID and get the club name that the owner belongs to.

aphexairlines3• 5 years ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21938429

The pigeon’s fidelity can be exploited in a process known as widowing, or widowhood, in which the pairs are split up and one bird is taken away to race back to the loft.
As Stewart Wardrop explains it, in a sprint race the stronger male birds will surge back to their hen and particularly their territory. But if the male birds are taken farther afield, they’re often tempted by pastures new.
Now consider the attitude of the female birds: separate them from their cocks and they will fly determinedly back to their love over hill and high water. So it’s typically the females that are entered into the prestigious race back to the UK from Barcelona.
After struggling to cross the Pyrenees, many of them appear to have their fidelity rewarded with an exhausted watery end in the Channel.

robotmay3• 5 years ago

Sadly I don't think PETA can be used as a reliable reference for anything any more, due to the extremist nature of their communication/actions. Not everything is as black and white as they like to claim.

However I do agree that, in the UK, the RSPCA are a fine organisation and would be my first port of call if I suspected mistreatment of animals.

pshort• 5 years ago

The answer is in the title. "thin air".

kristianp• 5 years ago

That explains the guano at the local MRI clinic.

earwolf1• 5 years ago

Memo to all assassin brotherhood members - please keep messages to a single pigeon.

Mystery as 5k homing pigeons vanish

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