– How did pigeon post work in the old days?
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I have an uncle who races pigeons, which operate on the same principles as carrier pigeons.
When the pigeons are very young, he starts taking them a short distance away from their nest – like a few meters. They get used to walking back to their nest. Keep increasing the distance – take them next door, then down the street, then a kilometer away, then across town. At first, they’re walking back, but then they need to fly back. They get very used to returning to their nest every time. Eventually, you’re taking them to the next town, and farther, and they return home.
In the case of a carrier pigeon, or racing pigeons today, eventually you’re packing up your pigeon(s) to take on a long journey. You can tie a message for your family to them, let them go, and they will fly that message home. You can’t send a message anywhere you want, but you can send a message home from wherever you are – as long as you have a pigeon from home.
For pigeon races, lots of folks will bring their pigeons to a certain location (could be several hundred kilometers away their homes), start a timer, and release them. Then you have to hop in your car and get home before the pigeons do. The individual flocks each return to their own homes. When the pigeons arrive, you stop the timer. Each owner does the math to calculate how fast their pigeons flew (since they’re all flying different distances). It works on the honor system.
One time, my uncle’s flock returned home from a race missing a few birds, but with a few birds that didn’t belong to him (the birds have ID tags). He called the owner of birds that didn’t belong to him (who lived in a different state) and sure enough he was missing a few birds, but also had my uncles birds in his flock! It turned out that the flocks were racing in completely different races, but had crossed paths at some point, and a few birds got mixed up and went home with the wrong group.
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