User:Markhopeufv

I was always fascinated with the building of lofts and nest boxes and the birds themselves were very interesting.

My Uncle Sid raced Pigeons from Winipeg to Surrey and I believe he worked with them in the second world war he also won lots of Trophys in Pigeon races as well as awards he won at the PNE in Vancouver.

The homing pigeon is a variety of domestic pigeon derived from the Rock Pigeon (Columba livia domestica) selectively bred to find its way home over extremely long distances.[1] The wild rock pigeon has an innate homing ability,[2] meaning that it will generally return to its own nest and its own mate. This made it relatively easy to breed from the birds that repeatedly found their way home over long distances. Flights as long as 1,800 km (1,100 mi) have been recorded by birds in competition pigeon racing.[3] Their average flying speed over moderate distances (500 miles) is around 80 km/h (50 mph),[citation needed] but speeds of up to 177 km/h (110 mph) have been observed in top racers for short distance (100 miles).[4]

Homing pigeons are called messenger or carrier pigeons when they are used to carry messages.

I had a wild pigeon join my pigeons one day and I called him Henry that was soon changed to Henryetta for she had two babys in which I had to raise and feed to adulthood I was waliking to school one day and found henryetta dead on the side of the road with tallon marks on her back from a hawk. Over the years we had some interesting lofts built. Some places have them in Zoos running freely alot of them are wild pigeons that live in cities, some cities donot allow people to keep pigeons as pets in lofts anymore such as Surrey BC.

The sport of flying homing pigeons was well-established as early as 3000 years ago.[5] They were used to proclaim the winner of the Olympics.[5][6] Messenger pigeons were used as early as 1150 in Baghdad[7] and also later by Genghis Khan. By 1167 a regular service between Baghdad and Syria had been established by Sultan Nour-Eddin.[8] In Damietta, by the mouth of the Nile, the Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur saw carrier pigeons for the first time, in 1436, though he imagined that the birds made round trips, out and back.[9] The Republic of Genoa equipped their system of watch towers in the Mediterranean Sea with pigeon posts. Tipu Sultan used carrier pigeons. They returned to the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srirangapatna, which was his headquarters. The pigeon holes may be seen in the mosque's minarets to this day.

In 1818, a great pigeon race called the Belgian Concourse took place at Brussels.[5] In 1860, Paul Reuter, who later founded Reuters press agency, used a fleet of over 45 pigeons to deliver news and stock prices between Brussels and Aachen, the terminals of early telegraph lines. The outcome of the Battle of Waterloo was also first delivered by a pigeon to England. During the Franco-Prussian War pigeons were used to carry mail between besieged Paris and the French unoccupied territory. Possibly the first regular air mail service in the world was Mr. Howie's Pigeon-Post service from the Auckland New Zealand suburb of Newton to Great Barrier Island, starting in 1896. Certainly the world’s first 'airmail' stamps were issued for the Great Barrier Pigeon-Gram Service from 1898 to 1908.[10]

Homing pigeons were still employed in the 21st century by certain remote police departments in Orissa state in eastern India to provide emergency communication services following natural disasters. In March 2002, it was announced that India's Police Pigeon Service messenger system in Orissa was to be retired, due to the expanded use of the Internet.[11] The Taliban banned the keeping and/or use of homing pigeons in Afghanistan.[12]

I was unable to find a flight to Bagdad where they originated