Who knew that pigeons are capable of flying with speeds up to 59 mph? It's true. Pigeons are able to fly crazy long distances...flights as long as 1800 km have been recorded during pigeon racing. You may be asking yourself what the f* is pigeon racing? Apparentley it kind of sort of is a big deal, or used to be in Europe. What I don't understand is how birds are used as a means of sending information. I get that pigeons have an innate homing ability but it blows my mind. I previously only imagined that air mail consisting of birds existed in the magical world of Harry Potter. It looks like we Muggles aren't so different after all.
A little known fact is that one pigeon has been awarded the Croix de Guerre or War Cross. In my opinion Cher Ami is probably the most badass bird in the history of pigeons. If you can dip, dodge, dive and duck flying bullets, still get shot through the breast, be blinded, have your leg hanging by a tendon and still fly 25 miles in 25 minutes that, ladies and gentlemen, is impressive.
So how did this post come about? I was for searching t-shirt designs and I came across a fun one. On it were drawings and phrases about birds. One said that pigeons can fly 100 mph. I thought no way that is possible, so I googled it leading me to Wikipedia. Idk, maybe pigeons really can fly that fast and I didn't find it. If this interested you at all, check out this link to wikipedia and scroll the pics. Other islands and continents have cooler pigeons. Sorry for the poor play on words there.
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