Eli5 How do messenger pigeons work?

Question

Eli5 How do messenger pigeons work?

In: Biology

Answer 1

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.