Eli5 How do messenger pigeons work?
In: Biology
The pigeons have a sense of where home is, and if released somewhere else, will fly back to where “home” is for them. So if you take the pigeon elsewhere, someone can attach a note to the pigeon and release it, and it will fly back home, where someone will find the note and deliver it as needed.
This seemed cool, but wasn’t THAT common.
Unlike the common misconception, pigeons do not deliver notes to wherever they want. They can only find their way back home. Someone at point A will raise the pigeons and these birds consider that as their home. When a person leaves to another location, he takes a bunch of these pigeons along with him. To send a message, he simply releases the birds, which find their way to point A on their own and thus delivers the message. The pigeon will not deliver your notes to other locations.
However, owls are known to deliver the notes to the designated person, which is why they are widely used by the wizarding community to send messages between Hogwarts, Ministry of Magic, and the house of wizards.
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