The Homing Pigeon

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 'Rich and joyous ...The book's quiet optimism about our ability to change, and to learn to love small things passionately, will stay with me for a long time' Helen Macdonald 'Big-hearted and quietly gripping' Guardian 'I love Jon Day's writing and his birds. A marvellous, soaring account' Olivia Laing '[A] beautiful book about unbeautiful birds' Observer 'This is nature writing at its best' Financial Times 'Awash with historical and literary detail, and moving moments ... Wonderful' Telegraph 'Every page of this beautifully written book brought me pleasure' Charlotte Higgins 'A vivid evocation of a remarkable species and a rich working-class tradition. It's also a charming defence of a much-maligned bird, which will make any reader look at our cooing, waddling, junk-food-loving feathered friends very differently in future' Daily Mail 'Endlessly interesting and dazzlingly erudite, this wonderful book will make a home for itself in your heart' Prospect As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it meant to feel at home. Returning to his childhood obsession with the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed. Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin. A book about the overlooked beauty of this species, and about what it means to dwell, Homing delves into the curious world of pigeon fancying, explores the scientific mysteries of animal homing, and traces the cultural, political and philosophical meanings of home. It is a book about the making of home and making for home: a book about why we return.

Originally published in 1907. One of the earliest and possibly the most important book ever published on homing pigeons. The well illustrated and detailed chapters include: The Columba Livia - Origin and Production - Lofts and Fittings - Food and Feeding - Interbreeding - Crossing - Mendel's Law Applied to Homing Pigeons - Founding a Loft - Some Physical Characters - Feathers and the Moult - The Homing Instinct - Training - Preparing for Old Bird races - Preparing for Young Bird Races, etc. Many of the earliest pigeon books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Animals have been an influential part of science, technology, and travel throughout time. Cher Ami: WWI Homing Pigeon introduces readers to the historical climate of the 1900s and World War I, background on Cher Ami, a chronology of Cher Ami's mission, and how that mission influenced history. Colorful graphic art, maps, history on homing pigeons, fast facts, and a glossary will bring the historic mission to a younger audience. A great supplement to your history graphic novel collection.

In the middle of the catastrophic 2008 recession, Aditya, a jobless, penniless man meets an attractive stranger in a bar. Little does he know that his life will change forever. When Radhika, a young, rich widow, marries off her stepdaughter, little does she know that the freedom she has yearned for is not exactly how she had envisioned it. They say homing pigeons always come back to their mate, no matter where you leave them on the face of this earth. The Homing Pigeons is the story of love between these two unsuspecting characters as it is of lust, greed, separations, prejudices and crumbling spines.

This book will delight young readers as they learn about the homing pigeon's Awesome Animal Power. Basic information is covered, such as life cycle, range, diet, predators, and threats. Table of contents, body diagram, map, fun facts, facts page, glossary, and index are included. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Big Buddy Books is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

How migratory birds can navigate home from their wintering grounds to their breeding sites over hundreds and thousands of kilometres has been an admired mystery over more than a century. Profound advances towards a solution of this problem have been achieved with a model bird, the homing pigeon. This monograph summarizes our current knowledge about pigeon homing, about the birds' application of a sun compass and a magnetic compass, of a visual topographical map within a familiar area and -- most surprisingly -- of an olfactory map using atmospheric chemosignals as indicators of position in distant unfamiliar areas.

"In this book, young readers will learn about how homing pigeons are able to carry messages across great distances."--