Talk:Homing pigeon

Redirect
Slight problem with article pages. Racing pigeon redirects here. There is also a page called Racing Homer. My dilema is that a Racing Pigeon is a homing pigeon, but a homing pigeon is not necessarily a racing pigeon. I'd like to change the Redirect at "Racing Pigeon" so it redirects to Racing Homer as I'm confident these will eventually become two different articles. The Racing Homer page is definately in need of work. If you are knowledgable on Racing pigeons then go there rather than adding racing related info here. Thoughts anyone? Sting au 11:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I changed the Redirect. Two months with no opposition to my suggestion was good enough for me. Racing pigeon now Redirects to Racing Homer. Sting au 01:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The bit about Taliban seems shady, and the site seems a little bias. I'm removing it. H6a6t6e (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Reverted your edit because you also changed the history section without consensus here. Please discuss before changing sections like that.  Sting_au   Talk  00:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The site does not explain, how - since the homing pigeons are bred to find their own home and so can only travel one way - do they get in the hands of the sender in the first place who, presumably, is a long way from their original home to which they are travelling?

81.109.213.88 (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * They are transported to their release point using trucks, cars, trains, boats or whatever form of transport is deemed necessary. I'll take a look at the article and see what I can add.--Sting  Buzz Me...   00:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Does wikipedia really allow novels to be sources? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.187.52 (talk) 02:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not for facts about the real world. A novel is a primary source for what the novel says. E.g., if we have something about a fictional pigeon, you can cite the novel in which it appears as the source for the info about the character, as long as it's descriptive and not analytic/interpretive. See WP:PSTS for more information.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:56, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Overlap with other pages
This page has substantial overlap with that on carrier pigeons and pigeon post (to name but two). These should be merged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.77.233.43 (talk • contribs) 14:27, 10 September 2009 (UCT)

History Section
The history section has now been improved so it is no longer "gay", as a previous commentator complained. Removed questionable info

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.104.231 (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I always heard that the European white variety of the homing pigeon was pushed to near extinction during the first world war. It was attributed to the fact that almost every soldier (both sides) shot almost every pigeon on sight due to the fact that it might be carrying and enemy message.  I don't have a reference on this however.  It seems it was the American variety that went extinct.  I'm not sure that makes sense to me.  Passenger Pigeon Shows what I know.--68.62.173.220 (talk) 15:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Fly off technique subsection in Gender Difference section
This paragraph contains explanations that cannot be understood and few grammatical errors. I can't fix it because I don't know how pigeons take off that well... -"SimonOrJ"(U/T/C) 20:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I breed pigeons myself, and am member of a number of pigeon associations, newsletters, groups and forums. That being said, I have never read of any scientific evidence allowing pigeons to be sexed in such a way. Usually these kinds of folk-tale sexing of birds/animals is inaccurate at best, if not totally fancifull. I am removing the section. payxystaxna (talk) 15:46, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Merge
I am proposing a merge of the article named Racing Homer with this article. Since there are numerous "homing pigeon" type birds, with little or no difference in actual breeding or information. I suggest that all homing and racing pigeon articles are merged, while this main article would state the names, common names, aliasses and characteristics of the different 'varieties' of homing pigeon. Show type homers would still be kept separate, with links from this article. If anyone has any opinions, I would love to hear them. Otherwise I will be merging the pages within the week. payxystaxna (talk) 15:57, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose: We have articles on all notable domestic animal breeds (to the extent we've gotten around to writing them). If it can pass WP:GNG it should not be merged without a strong showing of consensus. Any significant facts about homing pigeons in general at that article could be added to this one, but it is concise enough that it doesn't represent a WP:Content fork.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:11, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Homing Pigeon "Bermuda Triangle" Mystery "Solved"
It seems that low frequency sound waves are bent around Jersey Hill, New York, in such a manner that homing pigeons cannot hear them, and get lost. Pigeons released from Castor Hill and the town of Weedsport always take the same wrong turn.

In several studies where homing pigeons were released at Jersey Hill over the last forty years, (started after two groups of homing pigeons were lost in pigeon races), only one group was successful at returning to their home roost. The one time they were able to return, in 1969, there was a temperature inversion over Jersey Hill that bent the sound waves back down to the ground, allowing the pigeons to hear them on that day’s test.

The sound waves in question are generated by ocean waves, and can be detected everywhere on Earth (except Jersey Hill).

The problem has been plaguing biologists since the early 1960’s.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21262170 (The explanation for the rest of us from the BBC)

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/4/i.1 (The scientific explanation from the Journal of Experimental Biology)

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/4/687.abstract (Abstract of the study)

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/suppl/2013/01/30/216.4.687.DC1/JEB072934.pdf (Full study, Adobe PDF document) 76.0.10.78 (talk) 03:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

History section needs addition -- easy fix
I'm not a content expert in this subject, and i'm brand new to wiki, so i will leave this for another editor to determine how it's done...

it's now the 21st century, and a huge part of our population--esp the kids in school--see the 20th century purely as 'history.' when i went to look up info on carrier pigeons (for my own edification), the only piece of history i had personally known was that they were used in world war 2, and were quite famous for that. when reading this 'history' section, the ww2 info wasn't even referenced. it does appear in the section on 'war' farther down, but it needs at least a mention now in 'history'--even if to say that it's covered in the 'war' section. thanks to whoever can do this properly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Number.6.freeman (talk • contribs) 14:02, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge 2
Carrier pigeon is just one of the roles of homing pigieons. What's the purpose of having them separately? Interwikis are in a single set. --Infovarius (talk) 11:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, but some of it should merge to War pigeon. I would keep that latter article separate. Carrier pigeon should redirect to Homing pigeon, and have a hatnote that retains the disambiguations presently atop the carrier pigeon article. That article is entirely redundant. A carrier pigeon is just a homing pigeon performing a specific task, most notable for (historical) wartime deployment. We do not need an article on carrier pigeons playing a particular role.  We do need an article on carrier pigeons generally (primarily a domestic animals article), and we need an article on war use of pigeons (primarily a military history article), but not some third, mish-mash article in the middle, especially not in addition to the two others already existing and being fairly well-developed. :Pings, since it's been a while:  PS: Some bits of carrier pigeon may also need to merge to Pigeon post, which is also a good article to keep.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Missing info
As a reader of the article I would assume that the bird must be hatched and raised at a location for it to be his home. If this is not accurate or they can be re-homed using some technique, this information would make the article more complete. If this is covered in a related article (I checked carrier pigeon first) then this is more reason to merge articles. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.35.53.244 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Homing pigeon/carrier pigeon confusion
I searched "carrier pigeon" and Wikipedia automatically redirected my search to "homing pigeon" even though there was an excellent article on carrier pigeons (referenced from the homing pigeon article). Also, a thumbnail picture of a homing pigeon in the homing pigeon entry was missidentified as a carrier pigeon. The redirect, and the missidentification only add to the common misconception that carrier pigeons and homing pigeons are the same, or a closely related, breed. I edited the thumbnail but perhaps the redirect should be corrected. John Nerello (talk) 16:55, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

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Animal exploitation
I have reverted an editor's addition of a section on this aspect of the activity. I have done this as although there is probably a case to be made here, the source used applies specifically to races for betting in Asia. As I say in the edit summary, "Your English needs improving, and you are using criticism of racing over the ocean as a source for criticism of racing in general. I would be very surprised, for example, if the general fatality rate is anything like 98%. If it was, no-one would do it." With a 98% fatality rate I would argue that the betting return would be too low for anyone to bother. Britmax (talk) 11:04, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Cruising speeds https://edepot.wur.nl/441973
"During a flight, the pigeon’s speed is around 50-80 km/h (Dell’Ariccia, Dell’Omo, Wolfer, & Lipp, 2008; Gagliardo, Ioalè, Savini, Lipp, & Dell’Omo, 2007; Gessaman & Nagy, 1988; Schiffner & Wiltschko, 2009; Tyson, 2013)" 62.169.124.234 (talk) 16:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Egypt not corroborated by source
[5] https://www.jstor.org/stable/44563742 only mentions the domestication of doves in the fifth dynasty, but offers no proof that doves were used as messengers in Ancient Egyptian times — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.242.16.198 (talk) 13:01, 30 March 2022 (UTC)